A Chance To Matter
by Thuiy
Summary: Nothing interesting has ever really happened to me, I'm normally a pretty boring person. But now... Now, I have a chance to actually make a difference, to actually matter for once. I'm in a new world, and I refuse to fade into the background. I will change this world, or die trying. An SI insert into the world of Remnant.
1. Prologue

Huh. Well… I can't say that I expected this, honestly.

Let me clarify: the last thing I remembered was going to bed. I'm not in bed anymore. I don't know where I am. Oh, I have some guesses, but none of them make _sense_. I mean, WHY am I surrounded by what looks to be oriental buildings? Specifically, OLD oriental buildings. I'm certain that I'm awake, my dreams are way too weird and abstract for this to be a dream, and I haven't had a lucid dream since I was in elementary school.

So someone moved me in my sleep. I have no idea why or where. All of my friends are too far away and probably wouldn't pull a prank like this anyways. My roommates, unless they were severely drunk, wouldn't do something like this to me. It still doesn't answer where I am though. My first instinct is to say some form of chinatown, but I'm not even sure if where I live HAS a chinatown. Honestly, it looks more like one of those public gardens that litter the Chinese mainland, but there's too much greenery around for this place to be any part of China that I've visited.

So, the most likely solution is that I've been kidnapped. I haven't been abducted for slavery, because I can tell that I'm not restricted. No handcuffs, no rope, no blindfold, oh, and I'm also outside.

I reach into my pockets. I had pulled a double all-nighter to get a last minute programming assignment in, so I had simply collapsed while still wearing my clothes. I was wearing a black hoodie with blue jeans and tennis shoes. I had actually been kicking myself about the tennis shoes the previous night. Seriously, I should have learned by now that ice forms on the sidewalks at night. I almost died walking down the hill to my dorm room.

Luckily for me, I felt my phone in my pocket and pulled it out. It had full battery, since I had been charging it while working in the computer labs at my school. I also had the charging cable with me, which would be helpful if someone really HAD relocated me to China (or some other oriental country).

Turning on the phone, I saw that it wasn't getting any reception, which was not unreasonable. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure my plan only works in North America, which lends credence to the idea that I've been moved to another country. My phone claims that it's almost midnight, to which I look up and see that the sun is clearly directly above me. I sigh, and fiddle around with my phone for a few minutes, playing with the world clock feature to try and get a better idea of at least where I am in the world based off the timezone.

"So I'm not in Japan…" I mutter to myself. "And I'm not in China… Or at least, not the coast of China. I'm somewhere between Hong Kong and Tibet, so maybe central China or southeast Asia, like Vietnam…"

Yes, I talk to myself. It helps me think sometimes when I say things out loud.

I sigh. Well, hopefully someone in the area speaks English, or else I'm screwed. Unfortunately, the old-style buildings make me believe that won't be the case. I walk towards the only sign of civilization.

… Why am I walking so slowly? I look down. Well, there's the problem. My legs have shrunk.

…

Wait.

Back up a second.

Why have my legs shrunk? That's not a thing that just happens. Unless someone kidnapped me to experiment on me, I don't think that's what happened.

… Actually, now that I think about it, these trees seem pretty tall. I had just thought that that's how they grew, but that might not be the case…

I grab my phone again and go to the photo app. I switch the camera so that I can see what I look like.

… Um… I'm a kid again.

That's really all I can say. I just noticed this now, but my hands can barely cover half of my phone, the rest of my body shrunk with my legs, and my face looks way younger than it did last I looked in a mirror.

So this is bad. I'm in a foreign country, and I'm apparently a kid. Thinking about it, that 'kid' part might actually work to my advantage. People are much more likely to be friendly towards a kid than an adult, so getting home might be easier. When I get back, I'll have to visit a doctor to see what the hell actually happened to me.

I continue making my way towards the… Place where I'm going. Now that I'm thinking about it, this place looks way too big to be a small village. I'm seeing towers and buildings going on and on, and they seem to be going up some kind of hill.

Huh. Well, the place certainly looks pretty, I'll give it that. That's good. Hopefully they have some kind of transportation back home. I approach the outskirts of this… City I guess, and walk around, attempting to find a market.

For some reason, people aren't staring at me strangely, which is weird. What's weirder is that there's actually quite a diverse population here. I had expected it to be mostly asian, but there's caucasians here and even a fair amount of black people… Which is REALLY weird. I lived in China for five years, and as much as a white person sticks out in China, a black person sticks out far, FAR more… Because they, for whatever reason, rarely immigrate there. Never really thought about it, but seeing it is unusual, but seeing no one staring at them is even more unusual… This place seems like a contradiction of itself. I've visited most of the main urban centers of China except Beijing, so I know the places where tourists are more likely to visit and be accepted, and I'm almost certain that we're not near any of them… But there are people here who are almost certainly not of Chinese descent, so… Likely tourists.

I suppose it's POSSIBLE that I'm in a part of Shenzhen, since I never really visited that city much. I might also be in Hong Kong, in the New Territories region… But I lived there for two years, and hiked all over it. I'm not there.

Then came an even more startling discovery: all of the signs are in English. Now, while that's not completely unheard of in Asia, ALL of the signs being in ONLY English is. Usually it'll be some other language with English translations underneath, or something along those lines. This implies that the people around me are all native English speakers.

I eavesdrop on a random conversation in order to confirm this. I'm a little surprised that the people around me are speaking English, but I want to listen to a few more conversations before I walk up to someone and ask where I am.

"Hey kid! Get out of here!" Some random man said from what appeared to be a market stall.

Well, he was looking right at me, so I guess he's talking at me? Kind of a jerk to be saying that to a… How old am I now? I mean, my physical age. Not mental. I know that one.

Anyways, the merchant(?) wants me to leave, so I guess I will. I keep on walking, and then I think I see why he was so hostile towards me. There's a large group of kids running away from what looks to be some kind of police officer. I'd obviously heard of child thieves in stories, but I'd never seen any myself. Or at least, none that I had been made aware of.

"Hey! There's another one over here!" I heard a voice shout behind me.

I turn around to look at the voice, and another police officer is staring directly at me, running in my direction. My eyes widen in shock and I start running away from the officer. Unfortunately for me, I'm a (?)-year old (really need to figure that out), and he's a grown man who's likely gone through some form of training to make him at least somewhat fit.

However, the advantage that I do have over him is that I'm easy to lose in a crowd. I quickly see one surrounding a fountain, watching some kind of musician on a elevated platform. Is he playing a mandarin? Huh. Interesting.

The police officer moves into the crowd as well. He starts pushing his way through the other people. However, I simply crawl through a few tall people's legs and double back on myself. Once I see the police officer disappear in some other direction, I let out a sigh of relief and head back the way I came. Obviously I shouldn't walk back to the area where the police officer just called me a criminal. That would probably end badly.

I sigh. Apparently this part of the city isn't ideal for me to stay in. In fact, if there are bands of kids reduced to stealing from merchants. I'll have to find my way to a better part of the city if I want to make it home.

"Psst. Hey kid." A voice interrupts my thoughts. I turn to look, and there's a man with a dark robe standing behind me, a hood pulled over his head. Somehow, I don't think that he has the best of intentions right now.

"Those were some good moves back there. I like how you ditched that cop." The man said.

What I WANTED to do was smile slightly, nod, and back away.

What I actually did was say "Thanks!" In a sickeningly happy voice and a bright smile at the man's compliment.

...Okay, that's completely different from what I wanted to say. Why…?

"Look kid, I can tell that you need help, and you're not with the rest of the brats that run around here. I know a bunch of kids your age that will be more than interested in helping you out."

This is a bad idea. I don't need his help, I just need to find my way home. I open my mouth to tell him that, when my mind seems to disagree with me again.

"Sure! That sounds great!"

… … … Why am I no longer in control of what I say?

The guy smiled and beckoned for me to follow him. He was obviously running a ring of child thieves, but for some reason I was following him anyways. I don't know why, I very clearly didn't want to go with him. However, for whatever reason my body wasn't responding to my thoughts.

We eventually reached some form of warehouse in a shadier part of the city. I was basically shoved inside, and discovered a group of malnourished and dirty children, all appearing to be a few years older than my physical body.

"Alright boy. If you want to eat, you'll need to learn fast. Talk to one of the older kids, get them to show you the ropes. If you don't pay up by the end of the month, you're out." The man said, before he started to walk away from me.

"Wait!" I shouted at him. I was about to tell him off for basically abducting me, but again my body decided to form its own words. "What about my parents?"

At that, the man raised an eyebrow in questioning. "Oh, you still have parents? Kid, with the moves you pulled, I figured that you'd been an orphan for a while. Where do your parents live? We might be able to help you out there."

Okay, so maybe this guy wasn't exactly the scum of the earth that I thought he was. It was basically an orphanage in a city where I assumed they just flat out didn't care about orphans.

"I… I don't know." I said. My body decided to take over again. "I went to sleep, and woke up in the forest! I don't even know where I am!"

The man exchanged a look with one of the older kids, who simply rolled his eyes and gave me a pitying look.

"Look kid. I'm sorry to be the one to break this to you, but it sounds like your folks abandoned you. You don't leave a kid asleep in the forest and expect them to come out alive." He said bluntly.

I felt tears welling in my eyes. I'm not sure why, I know for a fact that my parents had nothing to do with my strange migration to this place, considering that they were a five hour drive away from me the night previous and well, my parents are awesome. They'd never do something like shove me into some random place for no good reason.

"As for where you are? Well, I don't know where you're from, but you're in Mistral now kid. Shibuya district. Not the worst place you could have ended up, but your luck sucks."

… Why does Mistral sound familiar? I can't recall any city with that name. Something is pricking the back of my mind, telling me that I should recognize that name.

They both saw my confusion, and while the older man chuckled fondly at my reaction as he left the room, it only seemed to frustrate the older teen even further.

"Whatever kid. If you want an education, save up for Haven. None of the other schools in Mistral are worth a damn. For now though, we need to unlock your aura." He said.

Now THAT certainly confused me. Aura. He's going to do some kind of mystical garbage on me? I mean, I can't think of any widely-accepted religion that has its members unlock their 'aura'. Maybe it's some kind of local tradition?

He saw my eyes widen and seemed to nod grimly. "I know kid. It's not normal to unlock it at your age, and you'll probably have lower reserves later on in life, but if you're going to survive here, you're going to need it. If you're lucky, your semblance will unlock and it'll be something actually worth a damn."

Suddenly it all clicked.

 _Is this guy trying to convince me I'm in the freaking RWBY universe?! What kind of drugs is he ON?!_ I think to myself.

Before I can voice any of that though, he already has two hands on the sides of my head. He closes his eye and I see a bright white outline surrounding his body.

"For it is in passing that we achieve immortality. Through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all. Infinite in distance and unbound by death, I release your soul, and by my shoulder, protect thee."

As he finished his words, I felt… Something wash over my body. I felt like someone had wrapped their arms around me. Like someone I trusted had my back. It was… Nice. I felt warm.

That's when it all hit me. I might legitimately be in the RWBY universe. No idea how, but at this point I don't think it matters. I doubt I'd be able to get back home, unless someone from this side called me here.

Besides… As much as I like my world, and all the family and friends that I have there… This my chance to actually matter. If I became a huntsman I might be able to help fight the Grimm. I have no idea if the events of RWBY have happened yet, or if they won't happen at all, but I know that being a huntsman would affect a hell of a lot more lives than being a programmer would. Honestly, helping people was a dream that I'd pushed aside a long time ago. I just… Wasn't a good enough person for it. I never volunteered for community service, I never really tried at anything. I just stayed in my comfort zone all the time.

But here I could be different. I had at least a decade of life ahead of me, probably more, before I could attend a huntsman academy. That was enough time to change who I am.

"Alright kid. You've got aura now. It's even a little bit higher than the average brat, so that probably means good things for you. Unfortunately for both of us, there's still a lot I have to teach you before you can go out on your own. Follow me, I want to be done before night falls. That's when the dangerous guys come out."

I stare at the teenager a few more moments. I certainly didn't recognize him from the show, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. I decide to follow his lead for now. He knew how to survive in this city.

* * *

Later that night, I was given a sleeping bag to sleep in. I couldn't sleep though. This day had been full of information. To be honest, I wouldn't be terribly surprised if I woke up as soon as my eyes closed. This would have been a strangely detailed dream, true, but the day was weird enough that it all being a dream would actually explain some things.

However, I don't think that's the case. The feeling I got when my aura was activated… That wasn't something I could dream up. It was far too realistic.

That meant that I was really in Remnant, the world of RWBY. I really need to find a public library, figure out when I showed up. Would I be able to change the events of the show? If so, what should I change? Penny and Pyrrha's deaths immediately sprouted to mind, but realistically, I should just stop Cinder as soon as possible. I could potentially prevent Beacon from getting overrun by Grimm.

I think about the events of the show some more. Is there anything I could change before canon? Summer Rose… I probably can't save. Not only do I have absolutely no idea when or how she died, I'm also a five year old kid without a semblance. Yes, I got checked up on. We went to a doctor to get me a free checkup. Apparently because I was young enough (and legally an orphan), I was given one free checkup to ensure that I wasn't going to spread any weird diseases into the city. When I was asked how old I was, the doctor looked at me strangely when I didn't know. However, the doctor apparently had some fancy machine take a sample of my blood, and he estimated that I was around five years old.

But back on topic, I couldn't remember anything off the top of my head that I could change before arriving at Beacon… Which I'm going to because there's no way in hell I'm staying in Mistral any longer than I have to.

Well… If I could find Jaune Arc, maybe I could help him become a more serious fighter, but Jaune's home country was never mentioned in the show, so I have literally no idea where he is. For all I know, he might not even live in one of the four major cities.

I sighed. This whole situation was messed up. I needed to get my priorities straight. First, I needed to unlock my semblance. The doctor we checked with couldn't tell me what my semblance was, but from what he could tell, it wouldn't be hard to unlock. Once I get my semblance, I would probably travel the world a little bit. There was no real logical reasoning behind that, I just wanted to see the world of Remnant for myself. I also needed to train. Obviously, being a programmer doesn't have great opportunities for the kind of combat you see in Remnant. Or at least, not a mediocre one like myself.

In order to train, I'd need a few things… First, an idea of what kind of weapon I'd want to use. I have a few ideas, but I want to find out my semblance first and use something that would complement my semblance. Second, I need places to train. From what I saw, there are plenty of dojos in Mistral to practice in, but they all have drop-in fees. I bet there are other places like that around the world, so I'll probably drop in at a few to see how I measure up to the natives of the world. Third, I can't let myself be found out. If I really am in a point before the RWBY timeline, then Salem's crew have eyes everywhere. I DON'T want them to focus their gazes on me, especially since I plan on screwing up their plans in the future. I can't participate in tournaments and such, and I can't show off when I do get to Beacon.

I nodded silently to myself. That sounded like a good plan to me. Once I figured out my semblance, I'd head out on the first airship out of here. Don't really care where, so long as it's one of the other major cities.

* * *

A few months later, I was given the chance I had been waiting for. I had been cornered in an alleyway by a couple of cops who had caught on to some of my failed pick-pocketing attempts that day. I had initially thought that this alleyway had an exit through a store, but that store had apparently closed down recently and the back door had been boarded up.

Because of that, I was faced with two police officers who were intent on getting me to a 'real' orphanage. Honestly, if it had been when I first arrived, I'd probably taken them up on their offer, but now I doubt that their official orphanage would let me travel the world like I was planning, or let me explore the city as much as I have been able to.

However, these officers very clearly wanted me to have a more normal life. I didn't want that. Hence the impasse.

I didn't want to be held down by an orphanage. I wanted to go out there, train and become strong enough to actually make a difference. I wanted to be important to someone for once. I wanted to actually matter.

As if some higher being could understand what I was getting at, I felt something mix with my aura, probing it, almost pondering it, before leaving something behind. I instinctively reached out to the new aspect of my aura, and brought it to the front to mix with the rest of it.

I opened my eyes. For some reason, the officers weren't moving anywhere nearly as quickly as they were a few moments ago. In fact… they're barely moving at all. Tentatively, I take a step forward, but they're still moving so slowly. I continue to move past them, and I notice their eyes start to widen in shock, but I just walk right past them, and then run down the streets. I look around, and for some reason, everyone seems to be moving slowly now. On top of that, when I stop running, I notice behind me papers are slowly floating off walls and away from merchant's stalls all over the street, and the clothes of people behind me seem to be slowly moving as if caught in a breeze.

...Did I just cause a wind by running normally? That's strange, but I guess my semblance is super-speed? That would explain how I avoided the police. Now that I think about it, it's likely that I also sped up my reflexes. I wish my semblance had been a bit more interesting, but I'm satisfied with what I have.

Unfortunately, my lack of aura seems to have been ridiculously detrimental, as all of a sudden, everything speeds up again. I feel tired, and I can tell that I've exhausted pretty much all of my aura reserves. That unfortunately means that I'm going to have to call it there, since most of my pickpocketing techniques require me to use aura in some way. I head back to the warehouse by winding through back alleys, just in case someone tries to follow me. I probably attracted some attention by running as fast as I did down a busy street, so I needed to hurry.

When I finally reached the 'orphanage', I basically collapsed as soon as I stepped through the doors. Someone came up to me to check on me, but I'd already fallen into unconsciousness.

When I'd woken up, the man that had taken me into the orphanage originally was above my sleeping bag.

"Kid, I'm glad you got your semblance and all, but you made a mess of things. Too many people caught you on camera, and those two police officers saw you before you could use your semblance, so you're now too high-profile to go out anytime soon."

I frown at that. I really didn't want any attention to be drawn to me, but I guess a child with a semblance (especially a useful one like mine) would catch a lot of attention. That's unfortunate, but I had planned on leaving Mistral anyways, so I guess I'll just have to leave sooner than expected.

"What do you mean?" My body asks. I've learned that every once in awhile, I just don't have control of what my body says. I think I might have an answer as to why though, after observing it a few times.

Quite simply put, I'm still a kid. It's a little confusing, but my brain isn't developed enough to handle the ideas that I give it all the time. It doesn't understand that not everyone was trustworthy, that not everything out of one of someone's mouth is fact. Honestly, it's pretty similar to how I was at a kid. I had a lot of embarrassments as a kid because I trusted people too much. Nothing major, I'd just have to figure out how to change my body's mentality.

...Which brings me to the awkward conclusion that I'm not actually the body that I think I am. My body certainly obeys my commands most of the time, but I'm not in complete control. So what am I? Am I the soul? Am I only observing someone that agrees with me? Am I possessing someone who just happens to look like me?

I've actually ruled out most of these. I'm not observing, because I've said things that only I knew, so I'm very clearly not observing someone. I'm also not sharing a mind with anyone that I can tell either, because I've yet to hear any conflicting thoughts when I do things.

That leads me the conclusion that I'm a soul that isn't fully integrated with my own body. That'll probably happen over time, but for now I'll have to deal with it.

"Well kid. We're going to have to keep you in here for a little while, and then you're going to have to leave town. People are going to know your face for quite some time, but it's going to be really bad for a week or so. I'm going to help come up with a way to get you on a airship out of here, but you need to get a handle on your semblance soon, before something like this happens again."

I nod. That seems reasonable. I also need to see how long I can hold my superspeed for before I run out of aura, or else I won't be able to practice it.

So the following day, since I wasn't allowed to spend it outside, I decided to test my limits. I take out my phone and ready a timer before I reach into my aura like I did yesterday and pulled out whatever it was that made me go fast last time. I quickly start the timer and stand still. After about two minutes, I start really feeling the strain on my body. I quickly fall to a knee and shove whatever it is that I'm doing back into my aura. I look at my phone. I was just shy of one minute, but that felt good considering I haven't trained at all and I'm still a kid.

"Man kid, you've really got to work on your reserves." The man who ran the orphanage said. He had been watching over me to make sure I knew when to stop. "That was what, ten seconds? It'll be a while before you can do anything good with that." At that, he walked away, convinced that I wouldn't fall unconscious from semblance overuse again.

… That was strange. I got almost a full minute with my phone, so why did he say that I only lasted a few seconds? Did I accidentally speed up my phone as well?

… Or is my semblance not superspeed?

If my semblance is not superspeed, it's something that can mimic it. But what?

I spend a bit of time trying out different ideas, I eventually came to a conclusion. When I'm in 'superspeed' mode, I don't feel like I'm moving any faster. My legs feel like I'm moving them normally, but I'm not. I can't see my legs moving any faster, and when I finish, I'm not out of breath for any reason other than aura exhaustion, and my legs don't feel like they're burning like they would if I had been running.

That leads me to the conclusion that I'm not actually running any faster, which confuses me at first. I don't know what my semblance is, but it makes everything else slow down (or speeds me up), and I can apparently coat my possessions with it.

I continue to practice over the week, and I manage to make it just barely past the minute mark by the end of the week. I'm proud of that achievement, but more importantly, I'm happy that I figured out my semblance.

I had figured it out when I tried to do the opposite of what my semblance seemed to do. I tried to speed up everything else. Make the world go by faster. For this, I started the timer for my phone, set it on the floor, and then used my semblance while simply intending to do the opposite. If I had super speed, like I had initially expected, this should have been really difficult to do. However, it was almost trivial how easy it was to make everything speed up compared to me. I literally watched the seconds on my timer tick up ten for every second I spent with my semblance activated. When I was finished, it had been just over five minutes, although it felt the same amount of time as any time I'd used my semblance.

This led me to an interesting conclusion: I don't think my semblance was control over speed. I think my semblance was control over the flow of TIME. I can manipulate the flow of time for an object to make it go faster or slower through time. I might be able to do more, but my limited aura pool and lack of practice will probably prevent me from doing anything too cool with this semblance.

… This actually gives me so many ideas. First and foremost: I need better control over how much I slow time down. If I could slow time down by a factor of say, two instead of five, I could maybe keep it up near-permanently. If I focus on my reflexes on top of that, I could become practically untouchable.

I like that idea. Not getting hit sounds fun. I know aura is supposed to heal us, but if I don't get hit in the first place, wouldn't that be better?

And from what I've seen, people can have pretty ridiculous reflexes in this world. I mean, Pyrrha could deflect bullets, so if I get to that point without using my semblance, imagine what I could do when I do use it?

… For the apparent two minutes that I had aura to fuel it at least. I'm not sure how much that's going to improve over the years, but I really hope that it's not that embarrassingly limited. If it still stays low over the years, I'll just have to use my semblance in short bursts instead of for the entirety of a fight.

After realizing what my semblance was, I decided to keep it hidden. Hide it for as long as I could, but use it as a surprise to win a fight that actually matters. Keep as much of my skills secret as possible, while still being good enough to get accepted into beacon. So not as strong as any of the RWBY team, but stronger than the average huntsman-to-be. That's what I want to appear like.

In reality, I want to be more like Pyrrha Nikos or Itachi from Naruto. Have an ace up the sleeve, but still be a ridiculously good fighter without it. I'll have to really work to get to that point, which is where the first problem lies.

Before coming to Remnant, I was lazy. I was a procrastinator. There's really no other way to put it. I didn't do things if I wasn't motivated to do so. I don't like doing work, and if I see something as work, I won't do it. Usually someone close to me will come along and pester me enough that I'll actually get it done, but I rarely push myself when it's just me. From the little experience I had going to the gym and working out, or running on my own, I know that I go easy on myself. Without someone to push me, I fear that I won't reach the level of Pyrrha.

But I can't just go asking any old person to train me. First, I'm an orphan with no cash. I'm probably going to have to steal once I leave Mistral, and likely for most of my life. On top of that, I have absolutely no idea who I could trust, and I want to minimize interactions with any characters of the RWBY cast, if they are alive yet that is. From what little I could piece together, I am before the events of the show, but I'm not sure how much. The easiest way would be to look up online who is the current heir to the Schnee family, since Weiss would be the most public of all RWBY members right now. I have no idea how famous Jaune's family is, Ruby and Yang's family aren't famous, Ren and Nora are orphans, Blake keeps a low profile, Pyrrha… Might be famous already, but that would depend on when I arrived. But the Schnee family is still the most public of all their families anyways, so that's how I'll be able to tell where in the timeline I am.

Anyways, I'll want to figure out when I am in the timeline, but I should avoid contact as much as possible. I can't afford to change the future too much if I want to take advantage of it, and since I don't know much about pre-canon, I can't risk changing too much.

Regardless, I'm standing at some kind of commercial airship dock, with a ticket given to me by the guy who ran the orphanage. I still don't know his name or what his face looks like, he refused to tell me, or hear what my name is for some reason. He's never put his hood down, but every once in awhile, I can see it twitch, so I'm guessing that he's some kind of faunus. No idea why he's running the orphanage either. Granted, it probably doesn't take up too much of his time, but he doesn't seem to get much out of this. Maybe he's just a nice person? Who knows.

Either way, he basically shoved a ticket in my hand and gave me directions to the airport. He wished me good luck, and then left. He probably figured that if I got caught on my way there, I wouldn't have lasted long after that anyways.

The ticket for whatever reason didn't actually say what my destination was, so when I arrived at the airport, I only knew what gate I had to go to. Luckily, no one recognized me there, because it took me quite some time to find the gate. When I saw the gate, I almost facepalmed in exasperation.

Because… It was going to Patch. Of ALL places, it just HAPPENED to go to where Ruby's family lived… Granted, the odds of me running into any of Ruby's family is pretty slim, I still wish I could have gone to say, Vacuo or Vale proper. Going to Patch specifically is just going to make avoiding the characters of the show harder… But it would definitely keep me safe from the authorities of Mistral. I doubt anyone looking for me will expect me to go to some random settlement off the coast of Vale.

Either way, that's where I'll have to start. From there, I'll either steal what I need or stowaway on another airship out of Patch. As of this moment though, I kind of just want to fade into the back of the airship. I've travelled on planes plenty of times, and honestly, outside of this one going vertical from the get-go, it's not much different. I find some seat out of the way and simply sit down to rest.

When we finally land, I walk around the town for a while, and pickpocket from a few people who seem like they wouldn't miss what little I'm taking. It's actually pretty easy to put the wallets back in people's pockets now that I can slow down time. Some probably will just think they lost the few lien that I took.

However, I need somewhere to stay, and I doubt that I'll be able to check out a room at my age and with no identification. So I'll either have to stay in some rundown old building or outside, preferably in a park. I walk towards a park that looks like it's not used often, judging by the lack of people in it currently. It's not a bad place to put down my sleeping bag, but I should look around the town a bit more before deciding.

I'm not terribly worried about something attacking me in my sleep. One of the first things that I'd been taught how to do with aura was sense people within a certain range of me. If a criminal/grimm/police officer tries to do something to me in my sleep, my aura should wake me up, and then I'll use my semblance to get out.

However, before I set up for the night, I hear a sound. It sounds like someone's… Crying? Whoever it is, it sounds like a young girl…

I look in the direction of the sound, and see the back of a young girl, about my age, sitting on a swing with her head bowed. It's hard to tell, but… I'm pretty sure that's Ruby.

Well, that certainly answers when in the timeline I've arrived. It's actually really ideal for me to arrive now, it shouldn't be too hard to affect the timeline from my situation, I'll just need to get to Beacon.

However, right now, I'm at an impasse. Ruby Rose, my favorite character from the show, is very obviously upset about something, and no one is currently comforting her. The idea of Ruby being sad just seems… Wrong. She was always a very cheery and innocent character, and I'd love to be able to help her out now… But I know that I shouldn't interfere much with the timeline. Will this matter?

I hear her sniffle, and watch as she wipes her eye with one of her sleeves, obviously wiping away a tear. That settles it. I'll do what I can.

* * *

Ruby had not been happy lately. Her mother, Summer Rose, had passed away only a few days ago, and then that whole fiasco with Yang had happened. Now everyone in her family was sad. Her dad, Yang, and even Uncle Qrow all seemed really sad. She knew why, her mom had been awesome! It… Was kind of hard to believe that she was gone. No one would tell her what really happened, that didn't matter. All that mattered was that her mom wasn't there anymore, and she didn't want to sit at home while everyone was so sad.

"Hi there!" A voice said from behind her. Ruby didn't even look up. She'd come to this playground because no one ever came here. She didn't want to play with anyone today.

"Go away." Ruby replied.

"Why are you sad?" The voice asked.

Ruby just clenched the ropes of her swing harder, before she slumped and started crying again. "Because my mommy's gone… And she's not coming back." She said, her voice breaking halfway through her words.

Whoever owned the voice almost immediately wrapped her in a hug. Ruby squirmed around, since a stranger had basically just grabbed her, but once Ruby realized what the stranger was doing, she stopped. She just kept crying more. No one had hugged her since her mommy had died. Her daddy just stayed still all the time, and Yang was trying to find her mommy, and Uncle Qrow just left… It was nice to be hugged again.

After a few moments, the voice spoke up. "I know how you feel… I lost my mommy and daddy, and I don't know if I'll ever see them again…" It said. "But I… Know that they want me to keep on going. To be the best and help people! So that's what I'm gonna do!"

That actually stopped Ruby's tears. … Be the best? The best what? Well, her mommy had been a huntress… So she'd just have to be an even better huntress! Her Uncle Qrow was still a hunter, right? Oh, and daddy is a hunter too! Maybe they could help her!

She turned around to face the person, and found that it was a boy with brown hair that had hugged her. She wasn't sure what to think about that. Boys were gross, and one had just hugged her. Maybe she should ask her daddy if she could use the bath later, that would make it better.

She smiled at the boy who had helped her. "You're right! Mommy would want me to be as great a huntress as she was!" That was likely completely false, there's no way in hell a parent would want their child to follow them into a field which usually leads in death, but Ruby was only four and three-quarters (she'd kept track!), so she hadn't realized that yet. "I'm gonna go be the best huntress in the world! Bye!" She said, running back home.

When she had almost got home, she realized that she still didn't know who that boy was or what his name was, but she'd go back tomorrow to find him. When she arrived at her house, she burst through the door, and leapt towards her dad, who barely managed to prevent himself from being bowled over.

"Daddy! Daddy!" She shouted.

Taiyang was shocked. Just a few hours ago, Ruby had run off towards the park. Qrow had promised to keep an eye on her in his crow form, so he wasn't worried too much. However, his daughter had apparently done a complete 180 in terms of personality. However, seeing his daughter so happy again… It warmed his heart. He gave Ruby a small smile. Yang was watching from a chair in the living room. She had been watching the television a second ago, but had turned it off in order to welcome her sister.

"I'm gonna be a huntress!" Ruby shouted.

That physically hurt Taiyang. He actually felt his heart die a little bit inside. Not even a week after Summer's death, one of his kids wanted to go into the career path that had killed her. Well, maybe it's just a phase...

"A-Are you sure sweetie? You know, just because mommy and I were hunters doesn't mean you have to be." Taiyang said, trying to convince his daughter not to be so focused on being a hunter as early as he could.

Ruby nodded rapidly.

"Mhmm! I wanna be the best huntress ever! Even better than mommy! I wanna help people, and I wanna fight bad guys, and show everyone how awesome I am!"

Well, those were certainly… Reasons. Reasons of a (almost) five year old, but reasons nevertheless. Honestly, most hunters became hunters for worse reasons anyways.

"Alright sweetheart. But you can't become a huntress just yet. You need to wait a few more years." Taiyang reasoned.

Ruby pouted. "Fine. But I'm gonna be the best daddy!"

"Nuh-uh. I'M gonna be the best." Yang said, deciding to join in on Ruby's conversation.

Taiyang's heart died a little more. One of his children becoming a huntress he could understand, but two? Hunter survival rates weren't high enough for his liking. He internally chuckled. He had been such a wild child in his days at Beacon, running off and being reckless, and now he was settled down with two kids that he didn't want to become huntresses, but couldn't refuse. How people change.

He watched his two daughters bicker back and forth for a bit before they ran up to their shared room and played some kind of game to see who would be the better huntress.

Even after hearing his kids proclaim that they were going to be huntresses, Taiyang couldn't help but let a smile spread across his face. He and summer had always suspected that the two kids would probably end up becoming huntresses, but that didn't make the thought hurt any less.

He heard the flapping of wings, and a crow flew through the window. A second later, it reverted into his ex-brother-in-law and former teammate, Qrow Branwen.

"So…. Where'd Ruby go, and how'd she get so cheery?" Taiyang asked.

Qrow scratched his head. "Well, she went to the park. That one close by, the one that only you guys use." He took a swig from his hip flask before continuing. "She was just crying on a swing set when this random kid just comes up and hugs her. They talk a bit, and then Ruby's off. Doesn't even get the kid's name. I stayed back for a few moments, and the kid just watched her run off and then walked back into the park."

"Hm. I might just have to thank the girl myself. She might just have been responsible for helping us get over Summer's…" He and Qrow both flinched at the reminder.

"Tai…" Qrow sighed. He knew he was going to regret the next sentence, but he had to say it anyways. "It wasn't a girl, it was a boy."

Taiyang was silent for a few moments as he stared at Qrow.

Finally he spoke. "Ruby's too young to have a boyfriend."

"For Dust's sake Tai!"

 **A/N: So here we go, trying my hand at this now. This one has been bouncing around in my head for a while, and hopefully some of you like it as much as I do. I know self-inserts aren't everyone's cup of tea, but I honestly just had so much fun writing this that I need to keep going with it.**

 **I will accept any constructive criticism given though, and not everything is set in stone, it's pretty much just the pairing and the semblance.**

 **Also, I actually have a beta for this fic! Hooray! Well, I say 'beta', it's a friend of mine that I'm going to also include in this that wants to help me out. Still, one more perspective during the creation process is good.**

 **To anyone who followed me here from The King's Tactician, thank you so much for sticking with me, and I hope that you'll stay. I got this story done in crazy fast time, and that means that the final chapter of TKT is being worked on sooner than expected. I wouldn't be surprised if I'm finished by the end of the month, but I'm taking my time. I want the finale to be as perfect as I can get it.**

 **Feel free to leave a question in the review section or just PM me if you feel the need!**

 **EDIT: Changed how much my character could manipulate time. Original max time dilation: 10:1 (Ten seconds for every real second) Current max: 5:1 (Five seconds for every real second)**


	2. Training for Beacon

_Day 1_

 _I've just bought a journal to document my thoughts. I've been able to get a bit of money from pickpocketing, but not a lot. I've just barely been able to get by so far. I hadn't realized just how much I had relied on the others back in Mistral._

 _I have to rely on shoplifting now. Pickpocketing won't last me too long, and Patch doesn't have very many areas that attracts crowds, so pickpocketing carries an inherent risk of getting caught if I'm not quick enough._

 _That being said, I don't think shoplifting will be as easy as I make it out to be. I'll give it a try, see what happens. I enough Lien to last myself on a small diet for another day or so._

 _Day 3_

 _Shoplifting is hard._

 _Day 5_

 _Shoplifting is impossible as I am. There's a reason why Torchwick needed goons to rob a dust store. Even simple convenience stores have about a thousand different layers of security on them, about half of which would knock me unconscious the moment I try to walk out of the store with stolen merchandise._

 _Which means I have to leave Patch now. Luckily, if I remember from the show, either Ruby or Yang commented that they could see Patch from the airship to Beacon, so I should be able to walk to the school from Patch. Vale is right outside Beacon, so that means that I'll be able to be in a much more populated area, ideal for pickpocketing._

 _Day 6_

 _I… Completely forgot about Grim. Not sure how I did that, but since I'd never actually seen the things before, I guess it's a bit understandable. I almost died today. Luckily, there was only one Beowulf, and I managed to hightail it out of there with my semblance before it could engage._

 _Day 7_

 _Thought I could stowaway on a ship to Vale, but those ones are much smaller than the one I used to get here from Mistral. Apparently very few airships actually fly from Patch to Vale because of the small distance. I might be able to get to Atlas or Vacuo, but those ones are probably checked a bit more closely for stowaways._

 _Might have to see about joining a caravan, or at least trailing behind one._

 _Alternatively, could train up enough to simply run to Vale. Unlikely, but something that I'd want to do eventually._

 _Day 9_

 _Almost out of supplies now. Managed to make pickpocketing money last a bit longer, but people that visit my frequent spots are now more suspicious. Some police officers stationed there, so I think my time in Patch is up._

 _There's no caravans tomorrow, and I don't have enough food to last me much longer. Water's fine, but food's a real issue now._

 _Ideally, I think I'd want to head to Atlas. It's the richest country on Remnant, so money wouldn't be as big of an issue there. Luckily there is an airship heading there tomorrow, so that's where I'm going._

 _Day 10_

 _Airships are really, really fast. Much faster than any plane I've been on, so I question how we aren't creating a sonic boom, but I assume it has something to do with aura and dust. Either way, stowing away isn't as hard as I'd initially thought. Since I'm a kid, sneaking in and sitting next to a random adult seems to be enough for the rest of the crew to be convinced that I'm with my parent. Sitting next to a couple would probably work better though, but this guy was asleep and probably wouldn't ask me any questions._

 _Day 11_

 _Atlas is cold. I'm used to the cold, but this is REALLY cold. Like, arctic circle levels of cold._

 _However, I was proven correct: people here are loose with their cash, and have an awful lot of it. There are law enforcers here, but no huntsmen patrolling the streets. I'll be fine evading them for now._

 _Day 12_

 _Finally in a position where I can comfortably practice using my semblance. I'm interested to see what my limits are, and I'll need to work on expanding them._

 _Day 14_

 _No new discoveries with my semblance, it's mostly me using up all of my aura, waiting for it to come back to me, and then draining it again. Not sure if that's the best way to train, but it's what I'm going with for now._

 _However, I need to train with stuff other than my semblance. I remember reading that it's actually harmful to start exercising from a young age. Not sure if that's true or not, but I'll hold off for now. Not like I have access to much exercise equipment anyways, the only facility I can access without a form of ID is the library._

 _Luckily for me, I'd always been good at throwing things. I found a few rusty knives. I'll practice throwing those, see how I do._

 _Day 29_

 _I can get up to a 6:1 dilation now. Haven't increased my aura capacity much, so it doesn't last very long, but bringing myself up to that speed is still nice._

 _Day x_

 _Totally forgot this thing existed. It's been a few months now, and I have not made much progress with my semblance._

 _While my aura reserves are increasing ever so slightly each day, it's really not much. Maybe an extra hundredth of a second at 5:1 dilation every day. Granted, that'll see good improvement eventually, but I'd still like to try and improve a little faster._

 _Day x+10_

 _Throwing knives are actually going well. Can now hit where I'm going for within about twenty feet._

 _Not particularly impressive, but a good start._

 _Day x+40?_

 _I've lifted enough money to buy myself a practice weapon. Considering I don't have any opponents to spar against, my options are somewhat limited._

 _I could go into archery, but that doesn't really go well with my semblance. I want a swift attack that no one can block._

 _My best bet is Iaido. Quickdraw. It's the only thing I can really practice. It's mostly aim and figuring out how to draw my sword faster. Ideally I'd use a katana, but for now I just have enough for a wooden sword. I'll just have to practice throwing leaves and sticks into the air and hitting them._

 _Day x+y_

 _So… It's been awhile since I'd written. I think it's been about half a year since my last entry. Things got pretty crazy in Atlas. I robbed the wrong person, and I think a rookie huntsman was on my tail. I had to get out of Atlas fast, so I went to Vacuo. It had not been long since I had left Mistral, so I didn't think that it would be a good idea to go back there yet._

 _Vacuo is interesting. There are actually very few laws here, because there isn't much in the way of a government here._

 _That means that there's some pretty good pickpockets here. I've had to get pretty good by necessity, and I'd finally managed to get a passive time dilation going. It's only 1.5:1, but this is great progress. It made it much easier to not be pickpocketed._

 _On the downside, I tend to talk too fast for most people to understand me. I also walk faster than people, which makes it hard for them to casually pickpocket me._

 _I haven't really put myself out there, but I don't really want to. I don't really want to socialize with anyone. My weapons training is going alright, my throwing is fairly accurate, so I'm trying to find other things to throw. Iaido though, is harder than I'd initially thought. So far I've mostly been focusing on quickly drawing my sword. I'm not going to practice aiming it until I can draw my sword in a fifth of a second._

 _That being said, I don't think that'll be possible until I can actually exercise some. Vacuo does have private gyms, and I can probably get a membership fairly easily._

 _My current plan is as follows: I'm going to stay in Vacuo for a while, probably until I'm 8 years old. (I'm a few months away now.) After that, I'm going to travel to some of Mistral's outer expansions, since Mistral apparently has the most expansions out of any of the kingdoms. I'll probably spend a year or so there, then come back to Vacuo. I'll probably repeat this process a few times, getting exercise and resources in Vacuo and then going back to Mistral. My hope is that, by hanging out in some of the outer territories of Mistral, I'll be able to get real combat experience against Grimm while still being protected by local huntsman. Obviously, I don't want to run into Grimm immediately, but from what I understand, the odds that a town gets completely overrun by Grimm like Ren and Nora's town is very, very low. I'll probably stick to some of the more well-defended towns for a while. Probably get 'lost' outside of the walls, maybe fight a Beowulf or two at most._

 _Is it a stupid idea? Probably. Is it a great way to train myself? Most likely. I work better through trial and error, and my Semblance gives me plenty of wiggle room. The main idea thought, is to gradually get to the point where I don't need my semblance to kill Grimm._

 _So, my plan in a more manageable form:_

 _-Head to Mistral in a few months_

 _-Fight some small time Grimm_

 _-Get back to Vacuo to pickpocket to my heart's content_

 _-Start weight and running exercises at 9_

 _-Get my_ _Iaido_ _quickdraw down to a fifth of a second_

 _There. I'll bookmark this so that I don't forget._

 _Day x+y+383_

 _So, I accidentally left this journal in Vacuo in my safety deposit box, so I just got a journal in Mistral instead. For the sake of convenience, I'm going to transfer those journal entries here._

 _Day x+y+1_

 _Realized I left my journal back in Vacuo. I'll use this in the meantime._

 _Flight was fine. I'm still young enough to blend in by sitting next to an adult, so I'm fine there. Found a nice alley to rest in, doesn't look to frequented. I'll set up shop there until I find a better place to rest._

 _Day x+y+36_

 _After a while, I found a nice park I can rest in. That'll be where I rest. Hopefully no one notices that there's an 8 year old sleeping in the park._

 _I'll start adventuring outside the walls starting tomorrow. I won't go too far though._

 _Day x+y+40_

 _So, that was a stupid plan. My entire reason for being here might be pointless now._

 _The problem that I immediately ran into was that there's no way out of the town without going past the guards, who sent me back inside before I could get too far. Luckily, I had found something about my Semblance a while ago, which should have been obvious to me in the first place._

 _Manipulating the flow of time doesn't just make me faster, it also decreases gravity. I can jump higher, and don't fall as fast. Considering the fact that gravity is acceleration, and all acceleration is change of velocity over time, and I'm slowing down time's effect on my person, that means that I'm also affecting gravity._

 _That meant that I could jump far enough to reach the treeline. As much as I try and say that my powers are different than super-speed, so far all of my powers could be replicated by anyone with super-speed._

 _Anyways, that wasn't the problem. Not really. The problem came on the second day. I had been training myself, practicing my quickdraw, when a Grimm showed up, while it was the Beowulf I was hoping for, there were far more than one there. There were only three at first, but when I ran away, there was even more behind me._

 _I got hit on my way out, slapped to the side by a Beowulf as I made my escape._

 _I'm writing this with one hand, because I've learned something important from all this. My pain tolerance is low. My arm, while not broken, feels like it's in a lot of pain, enough that I froze when I got hit by the Beowulf._

 _I remember I used to have good pain resistance, because I had a different mindset. Things that hurt other people didn't hurt me as much, and I need to get back into that same mindset._

 _I can't afford to get into a fight with a Grimm and freeze up the moment I get hurt. I need to get in a better mindset for that._

 _I'm not stupid enough to harm myself on purpose for that, but I definitely think I need to get myself involved in more combat situations._

 _Just need to figure out how…_

 _Day x+y+80_

 _So, I have a new favorite person. Some huntsman-in-training had come to this town for a Grimm extermination mission and had broken off from their team. He apparently saw me practicing with my sword and offered to help me out._

 _After giving me some tips, he offered to buy some equipment for me if I gave him the money for it. I asked him to buy me a katana and some shurikens. I don't plan on using the shurikens long-term, but it's something that I can practice throwing with other than my normal knives._

 _I was pleasantly surprised when he actually came back with my money. I didn't actually expect him to help me, and that apparently showed on my face._

 _The man noticed my shock and simply smiled. He seemed amused by my paranoia. Apparently he had also grown up on the streets of Mistral, so he understood why I was practicing, although he didn't think that I should necessarily try to fight a Grimm at my age, but he wouldn't do anything to stop me._

 _Well, he did take all of the money I gave him, and I'm pretty sure that I gave him more than what he gave me would have cost, so I guess he didn't do it completely out of the kindness of his heart, so there's that._

 _Day x+y+85_

 _Right. I've been putting this off long enough. I can't practice my new weapons yet; they're to heavy._

 _Shurikens would be fine, but the problem is I'm not used to throwing objects like how I want to throw shurikens, and it's throwing me off. I'm going to start with Lien cards to get used to the motion, and then build up from there. Lien cards are made out of some kind of plastic material, so it shouldn't be too hard to throw them accurately._

 _The katana I have now is simply too heavy for me to practice unsheathing it as fast as I want. It's also about as long as I am tall (which is to say roughly four feet), so I need to stick with my wooden one. I'll probably need to wait until a few months after I get to Vacuo and start working out again before I can start._

 _However, now that I have a weapon, I could theoretically kill a Beowulf if I catch it by itself. A short burst of my Semblance and I should be able to kill it._

 _Day x+y+150_

 _Success! I caught a lone Beowulf today. It was all by itself when it decided to attack me. Luckily I had enough time to react and boost my semblance to max time dilation, which is currently hovering somewhere close to 7:1 right now._

 _Even though I can only hold that for about twenty seconds, that's all I needed. Like expected, since my katana is affected by the time dilation, it ripped right through the Beowulf's unprotected stomach. That's the main reason why I wanted to fight one, so now I don't have to stupidly adventure beyond the walls anymore. Once I'm trained a bit more, I'll be able to fight these things more properly._

 _Day x+y+264_

 _So I'm approaching that moment when I return to Vacuo, and I felt like writing some more quantifiable results for how I'm doing. By taking some videos of myself, I've managed to piece together where exactly I am. I'll periodically do this every year or so, similar to how some people's family measure their height year by year. It'll certainly be interesting to see my progress over the years at least._

 _Maximum time dilation: 6.8:1_

 _Time until aura depletion at maximum dilation: 45 seconds_

 _Passive time dilation: 1.55:1_

 _Unsheathe speed (Wooden sword): 0.7 seconds_

 _Unsheathe speed (Katana): 1.2 seconds_

 _Accuracy (_ _Iaido_ _): 5/12 (stationary)_

 _Accuracy (Throwing knives, fifteen meters): 9/12 (stationary)_

 _Accuracy (Lien cards, ten meters): 3/12 (stationary)_

 _Top running speed: 10mph (ten seconds, reproducible 50% of the time)_

 _Day x+y+365_

 _There, all caught up now._

 _Day x+y+412_

 _I've started a workout regime. The moment I entered the gym of my choice, I could tell that the people of Remnant are naturally more physically fit than a normal human of my world._

 _Considering the fact I saw a girl not much older than myself bench pressing over a hundred pounds pretty easily, I think that I'm going to have to step up my normal game._

 _Let the training begin._

 _Day x+y+446_

 _I have a confession to make Diary. I'm probably not trying as hard as I could._

 _I've always had this problem when I've trained. Didn't matter if it was working out, running, or studying. Unless there's someone there to push me further, I do what I consider the bare minimum to get stronger, occasionally a bit more, but I don't really push myself very often._

 _I need to kick this habit, but it's not easy. The only reason why I push myself so hard with my weapons and semblance is because I find it interesting. Even then, I'm starting to lose interest in practicing with my weapons of choice. Hopefully now that I have a new training method, I'll be able to push myself more often._

 _Day x+y+493_

 _So, some pretty sketchy people came into the gym while I was there today. Not sure how I feel about that, but they were roughing up a few people. Luckily I managed to avoid their gaze, but I don't think that'll last. Unfortunately, I don't really see a way around that problem._

 _Day x+y+513_

 _Made it to 7:1 time dilation today. Pretty proud of that._

 _Day x+y+730_

 _So, I'm off to Mistral again. I'm confident that I'll be able to fight a small pack of Beowulfs now. I've been focusing on increasing my passive time dilation this year, and I've almost gotten to 1.7:1, which might not seem like much on paper, but is quickly approaching the point where my reaction time is double that of a normal person's._

 _While I have my passive dilation up though, I don't recover any aura, so if I speed myself up anymore, I won't get it back until after I drop all time dilation._

 _I have to walk a fine line between getting used to daily life with my time dilation on and not adapting to it. I wouldn't want to get so used to my time dilation that when it drops I would be completely useless, so I switch it on every other day. That seems to be doing me alright for now anyways._

 _Day x+y+783_

 _Found a pack of Beowulves. Five total. Dodging is definitely something that I need to improve upon however. I think there's actually a gymnasium in town, I should use that to get more limber. Do some acrobatics, since it seems every student at Beacon knows how to do flips and cartwheels._

 _Anyways, as was implied, I did get hit again. It was only a shallow cut though, and my aura took care of it. I only had to use 5:1 time dilation to end the Grimm, which I can now hold for a good five and a half minutes. Using that, I was able to kill the Grimm with minimal problems._

 _However, I was exhausted by the end. Not from aura depletion, but from lack of physical energy. I need to start running long distances if I'm going to last very long in combat._

 _Day x+y+827_

 _There's so much I need to work on. I think I made a mistake by trying to make it out on my own. If I had been able to go to a combat school, I'd probably be in organized classes._

 _That being said, I'm probably ahead of most combat schools. However, the only reason why that is the case is because my semblance is a little hax._

 _I also came to the realization that the days when I have passive time dilation up I have more time to train, but I need to sleep longer, because I'm staying up longer. That makes me so tempted to keep time dilation up all the time, but I can't get too used to it._

 _Day x+y+957_

 _I...Think I saw Lie Ren in the gymnasium today. In fact, I'm sure of it, because there was a girl with orange hair not too far away from him cheering him on._

 _I didn't say anything. I don't know if interacting with either of them would have some kind of butterfly effect that ends up with them at some other school other than Beacon._

 _Either way, I'm leaving in a few months, so while it's cool that I saw them, It's not too important._

 _Day x+y+1074_

 _So, Nora came up and talked to me today, Ren trailing behind her. She introduced herself and Ren, and I introduced myself to them, but didn't interact much further._

 _I'm actually not too bothered by Nora's personality, especially since she's actually acting age-appropriate… For now. However, I think I'll still be fine with her in the future._

 _Ren and I are pretty similar. We're both pretty quiet, but Ren is obviously much more acrobatic than I am. Apparently the whole reason why they even introduced themselves to me is because Ren noticed I was practicing and wanted to give me some advice._

 _Granted, he had apparently noticed me a couple of months ago, but it took that long before Nora dragged him over and introduced himself to me._

 _On a side note, I now know how old I am in relation to the RWBY cast. I'm ten, almost eleven. Right now, with Nora and Ren being eleven turning twelve. That means that I'll be a year behind them, but since I don't have valid ID in the first place, I can probably get by with pretending to be a year older than I actually am._

 _Besides, Ruby was only fifteen when she entered Beacon, so if I do well enough I'll be able to get in even if I get found out._

 _Day x+y+1095_

 _Heading back to Vacuo. Here's this year's stats. Forgot last year's._

 _Maximum time dilation: 7.4:1_

 _Time until aura depletion at maximum dilation: 42 seconds_

 _Passive time dilation: 1.85:1_

 _Unsheathe speed (Wooden sword): 0.5 seconds_

 _Unsheathe speed (Katana): 0.8 seconds_

 _Accuracy (I_ _aido_ _): 8/12 (stationary)_

 _Accuracy (Throwing knives, fifteen meters): 12/12 (stationary), 7/12 (while moving)_

 _Accuracy (Lien cards, fifteen meters): 7/12 (stationary)_

 _Top running speed: 12mph (thirty seconds)_

 _Maximum bench press: 95 pounds_

 _Day x+y+1123_

 _I'm an idiot._

 _Every time I go into the gym, I've been deactivating my passive time dilation because I don't want to put too much stress on myself._

 _However, I now realize that I should have it on at all times in the gym. If I increase the passage of time on my muscles, it'll increase the rate at which my aura regrows my muscles, making me stronger, faster._

 _Why didn't I think of this earlier?!_

Day x+y+1124

 _I didn't think of this earlier because it's a stupid idea._

 _Nothing actually changes in regards to my muscles. All I'm doing is changing the flow of time in regards to what's around me, which means that my muscles are mending normally, or at least for me._

 _So for everyone else in the gym, I was just working out really, really fast. In reality, nothing had changed, except by the end of my workout I had aura exhaustion on top of physical exhaustion._

 _Day x+y+1356_

 _I'm a bit concerned. I've tried a bunch of stuff with my Semblance, and so far all of my ideas have not worked out well. While I'm happy with what I've got, I feel like I could do more with my Semblance, but I don't know what._

 _Whatever. For now I need to increase the core abilities anyways._

 _Day x+y+1460_

 _So, stowing away is harder now. Luckily I've got enough money to buy myself legitimate tickets to and from Mistral this year, but I'm going to scope out a few airships, see whether or not stowing away is a possibility in the future._

 _Stats for the year:_

 _Maximum time dilation: 8.2:1_

 _Time until aura depletion at maximum dilation: 40 seconds_

 _Passive time dilation: 1.95:1_

 _Unsheathe speed (Katana): 0.6 seconds_

 _Accuracy (_ _I_ _aido_ _): 11/12 (stationary), 5/12 (while moving)_

 _Accuracy (Throwing knives, fifteen meters): 10/12 (while moving), 2/12 (thrown target)_

 _Accuracy (Shuriken, fifteen meters): 10/12 (stationary)_

 _Top running speed: 15mph (thirty seconds)_

 _Maximum bench press: 155 pounds_

 _Day x+y+1539_

 _After fighting a small pack of Beowulves, I ran into an Ursa. Luckily those things aren't any faster than a beowulf, which is what I'm used to. All I really have to do is get up on it's back, which I used full time dilation in order to achieve. After that, stabbing it through the neck works._

 _Day x+y+1542_

 _After the success of killing an Ursa, I thought that I could take on something else. So I tried to fight a King Taijitu. This was a mistake._

 _Once it struck out at me, I realized that it could strike faster than I could react to, even with full time dilation. I got lucky that I barely managed to dodge its strike, but only just. Afterwards, I managed to kill it, and then stabbed it again to try and prematurely kill the second snake._

 _That worked… To an extent. Turns out, the second snake is a little more durable than the first, so I didn't quite kill it with the first strike._

 _It struck at me with impossible speed, and without a chance to dodge, I did the only thing I could: point my sword at it and hope for the best._

 _Luckily I had a bit of a 'Harry Potter' moment, and my sword found its way through the roof of the snake's mouth. Unfortunately, unlike Harry Potter, I didn't have a Phoenix to heal the wound that I received afterwards._

 _I had no idea if King Taijitsus were poisonous or not, so I decided to err on the side of caution._

 _Good thing I did too, because I started feeling immense pain just before I reached the clinic. The people there were happy to help me, and luckily it was fairly simple for me to get the antidote. They asked how I'd even encountered one, and I'd answered honestly that the thing attacked me, so I killed it._

 _I'm not quite sure they believed my story, but it was the truth…_

 _Day x+y+1662_

 _There's apparently a place where I can train my reflexes. It's only open to those thirteen and older, but I'm close enough. I just need to find it. This city is actually a bit large, and I'm ashamed to say that I haven't explored much of it. I knew the Mistral city that I'd visited last year pretty well, but this year, not so much._

 _Day x+y+1664_

 _Found it. It's a place that shoots various projectiles from all directions, starting at dodgeballs and leading up to what looks like some kind of airsoft bullet. I'll be making liberal use of this facility this year, though it's going to eat through my cash reserves._

 _Day x+y+1749_

 _I need a sparring partner. It's not enough to just practice dodging and doing acrobatics, I need a place where I can actually spar against another person._

 _Maybe I should enter a tournament? No, I don't want anyone I don't trust to know how I fight. That may sound unreasonable, but I need every advantage I can get. If that means that there's not documented evidence that suggests I can fight, then so be it._

… _Maybe I could find someplace in Vacuo._

 _Day x+y+1825_

 _Heading back to Vacuo. Here's the progress for the year:_

 _Maximum time dilation: 8.7:1_

 _Time until aura depletion at maximum dilation: 40 seconds_

 _Passive time dilation: 2.25:1_

 _Unsheathe speed (Katana): 0.5 seconds_

 _Accuracy (_ _I_ _aido_ _): 12/12 (stationary), 11/12 (while moving), 4/12 (thrown target)_

 _Accuracy (Throwing knives, fifteen meters): 12/12 (while moving), 9/12 (thrown target)_

 _Accuracy (Shuriken, fifteen meters): 12/12 (stationary), 10/12 (while moving)_

 _Top running speed: 22mph (forty seconds)_

 _Maximum bench press: (?)155 pounds (Haven't tested in actual gym, hopefully hasn't gotten worse)_

 _Day x+y+1968_

 _The only place in Vacuo where I could spar is an underground fighting ring, and I'm not confident enough in my abilities to go down there yet. Maybe when I'm a year away from Beacon, but again that could reveal my capabilities to the wrong people._

 _I've started throwing larger objects, like a short sword I bought. I want to try to be able to throw just about anything, it could be a useful skill to have._

 _Day x+y+2076_

 _Holy crap puberty gets affected by aura in all the best ways._

 _So, my physical capabilities have increased by a ridiculous amount, and while I can't test it, this might include my reaction times._

 _My stamina, top speed, and strength have all increased well past what a normal human would be capable of back in my world, but from what I understand, I'm only just in the top tenth percentile for strength and stamina in my age bracket. (Speed's different, I'm actually in the top fifth percentile there)_

 _However, the weirdest thing is what happened to my semblance. My aura reserves seemed to have dropped, but my semblance seems more… potent now. I don't think there's actually a maximum to how much I can dilate time, but with my now reduced aura reserves, I can't hold really high dilations for long, but I can get to some frankly absurd dilations… for about ten seconds. Passive time dilation hasn't changed however, which means that the rate my aura recovers hasn't changed._

 _But seriously, this feels bizarre. However, since I've now proven that I've started puberty, I'm going to have to start talking to myself more. I need to use my voice so that it's not super high-pitched, and I haven't talked to anyone except to buy things for the last year or so._

 _Day x+y+2190_

 _Heading to Mistral again. This place is a bit smaller, might actually get involved in a Grimm invasion, but I think I'd be ready._

 _Maximum(?) time dilation: 100:1_

 _Time until aura depletion at maximum dilation: 9.3 seconds_

 _Passive time dilation: 2.5:1_

 _Accuracy (_ _I_ _aido_ _): 12/12 (while moving), 8/12 (thrown target)_

 _Accuracy (Throwing knives, fifteen meters): 11/12 (thrown target)_

 _Accuracy (Shuriken, fifteen meters): 12/12 (while moving), 11/12 (thrown target)_

 _Top running speed: 36mph (sixty seconds) (I have no idea how this is physically possible)_

 _Maximum bench press: 255 pounds (Seriously, aura is freaking ridiculous. I'm thin as a rail!)_

 _Day x+y+2234_

 _Not much happening today. Fought off a pack of Beowulves. They're getting pretty easy by now. Especially with my new speed, I can pretty easily kill-_

In a small diner, I was writing diligently in my journal, when I was interrupted by a broadcast showing a tournament up in Atlas.

"-is our youngest competitor this tournament. Apparently, Pyrrha Nikos, the youngest champion of the Mistral tournament has encouraged others to follow in her footsteps. But can this young man, Samuel Scott, truly measure up to the 'invincible girl'? Let's find out."

I froze. I hadn't heard that name in over a decade. Surely, that's just coincidence?

I look over at the screen.

And then I see it.

He's wearing.

The stupid.

Goddamn.

Hat.

It's him. Sam Scott. A close friend of mine, who I roomed with back in Freshman year of college. I have no idea how he got here, but then again, I don't know how I got here either.

Doesn't matter. No other living being on the face of either world would ever wear a green and yellow striped hat with a smiley face on it into a freaking tournament fight.

I immediately pack up my things and head to get the rest of my supplies at the park where I'm staying. The tournament lasts for a few days, but I need to hurry to Atlas if I'm going to catch up to Sam.

I sprint out of the cafe that I had been eating in, probably drawing odd looks from the other customers, but I don't care. I need to get on an airship as quickly as possible.

When I get to the airships, I inwardly cringe at how much money it's going to cost me. I'm not in a high-density city, so flying outside of Mistral from here costs a lot, and I didn't book ahead of time, so it costs even more for me, but it'll hopefully all be worth it.

Moments later, I'm in the air. I take the time forced on me to think about what I'm going to be doing. Luckily the airship has one of its screens focused on the Atlas tournament, so I can watch. Unfortunately for me, Sam's match already ended, but I didn't know if he'd won or not.

A little while later, my question was answered. Sam managed to beat his opponent, who looked several years older than him. Looking ahead in the brackets, I find that Cardin Winchester is actually competing in the tournament. I honestly hadn't expected him to be in a tournament, and I especially hadn't expected him to be Atlesian.

Either way, I now knew how to find Sam. The tournament was spread over the course of several days to increase ad revenue, so I should be able to find him tomorrow to arrange a meeting elsewhere.

From there… Who knows. I know that Sam had at least watched RWBY, but I'm pretty sure he hadn't finished season three last I talked to him. However, right now, another person to bounce ideas off of sounded good, and Sam was apparently good enough to win fights in a tournament, so he'd be a good test for my combat capabilities.

But the most important part was ideas. I'll admit, I had done little planning as to what to actually do in regards to changing the future, mostly because I have absolutely no clue.

I mean, I don't know how powerful I am really. I have no measuring stick for myself. I have no idea if I could beat Mercury or Emerald, let alone Cinder. I don't have a concrete location where any of the events happened, and my memory is crap in the first place anyways, let alone after almost a decade of not seeing the show.

So just going to wherever Torchwick is hiding out is out of the question. Even if I could infiltrate his headquarters (which I doubt), I wouldn't know where it is to start with.

So that led me to rack through my mind to remember when the events where I could theoretically disrupt Cinder's plans.

I could help Ruby capture Torchwick outside the dust store from episode one, but that just runs into the same problem: it's just some random dust store, how am I going to know which one is the right one before time comes?

The next opportunity would probably be when team RWBY fights with Torchwick at the docks. That might change a few things, so that's my first real chance for some change. I could maybe capture Torchwick then, which might prevent the whole Mt. Glen train incident.

The next opportunity would be the night of the dance. At least, I think that happens before Mt. Glen. I can never remember if the dance was in season two or three. Either way, if I could help Ruby unmask Cinder, that would be huge. However, this would be the riskiest, as Cinder might simply decide that it wouldn't be worth the hassle to take Ruby and I alive, or get angry at us for disrupting her plans, and then Ruby and I would be dead. That would be bad.

Mt. Glen is a possibility for me to change, but it requires me and my team to be able to tag along with RWBY's. Not sure how we'll pull that off, but it might be possible.

Next was the Vytal tournament, which is being really general. If it gets to that point and not much has changed, I'll talk things over with Sam, but Beacon might fall at that point no matter what I do. Cinder controls all of Ironwood's forces, Neo can infiltrate and rescue Torchwick, causing untold levels of chaos, and that chaos would attract Grimm, giving Cinder time to grab the fall maiden's power.

If we make it to season four, it means that I've failed. Honestly, if I hadn't changed anything up to that point, I'll be convinced that the timeline is fixed.

At the very least, I've come up with two plans that should work. If I can distract Mercury in the final round of the Vytal tournament, I should prevent Penny's death.

The other main change that I want to fix would be Pyrrha's death. I… Have a plan for that, but it's a kind of 'last-ditch' kind of thing.

I shook my head. I can talk strategy with Sam when I meet up with him. The airship is about to land anyways. I open up my journal to finish up today's entry.

… _I just caught a video of Sam in a tournament in Atlas. I've almost landed there now, hopefully I'll be able to meet up with him tomorrow._

* * *

Sam was a bit nervous right now. This was his first big competition, his first moment in the global spotlight. He needed to do exceptionally in the next few years if he wanted to get into Beacon a year early so that he could attend at the same time as team RWBY.

He NEEDED to get better, and facing strong people was how he was going to get there. He knew that his skillset wasn't focused on one-on-one fighting, so he needed as much practice as he could get.

He was lucky that his family were servants of the Schnee family, so he was allowed to talk with Weiss and Winter, who both knew quite a lot about applications of dust. Weiss and he had been best friends since they were young, since Sam was the only other person who could really be close to Weiss. Because of that, Weiss had gifted Sam with a large amount of dust for his tournament.

Surprisingly, even Jacques Schnee, someone who Sam would charitably call a certified bastard at the best of times, pulled out all the stops for Sam. While he didn't want his children to actually participate in tournaments themselves, for fear of making his family seem 'uncivilized', or 'brutish', he wasn't above helping Sam win if it made the Schnee family look better.

After all, Sam was a child of a Schnee servant. That implied that the servants of the Schnee family were powerful. If the servants were powerful… What did that imply about their employers?

So to that end, Jacques acquired a an experimental prototype for a kind of clip that used Aura rather than bullets or dust. In the stage it was in, Sam couldn't combine dust with its shots, but he knew enough about dust manipulation to use the raw crystals for attacks.

So with those two advantages, he felt a little bit better about his chances in the next round. His next opponent was an Atlas native. He used a large warhammer and favored powerful strikes. His Semblance seemed to be to send waves of earth out when he hits the ground with his feet.

Sam was of mixed minds about fighting the man. His current strategy was to try to layer as much ice on the ground as possible, and then try to ring the man out using either gravity dust, the knockback from his shotgun, or possibly both. He didn't have a good method of taking out a melee fighter who looked like he could take a few hits.

As Sam was frantically worrying about the upcoming combat, he heard a voice that broke him out of his train of thought.

"Sam Scott?" A voice asked.

Turning, Sam saw a boy about his age standing in the doorway. The boy in question had brown hair, a thin frame and stood at roughly his height, which was just shy of six feet. He had a black hoodie and jeans on, with no weapons visible on his person.

But for some reason, this boy looked… Familiar, which was weird, since his features made him seem fairly generic, not someone that Sam was likely to remember based on appearance.

Sam furrowed his eyebrows and cocked his head. "Um, yeah… That's me. This might sound weird, but… Do I…. Know you?"

The boy shrugged his shoulders. "Hopefully. My name's James Smith. Remember me? Please let the answer be yes, otherwise this is going to get awkward, fast."

Sam's eyes widened to an impossible size in shock. "JAMES?! Dude! You're- How-?"

James sighed in relief. "Oh, thank God. I was actually concerned for a second there."

"I- What? How? Why?" Sam tried. His mind was a bit on the fritz at the moment. His roommate from Freshman year, one of his friends from a world he had thought he had been cast out of, was standing there, in front of him.

"Well, in order…" James said, clearly amused. "Yes, it's me, your roommate from first year. We roomed in Carriage House, and just in case you need more proof, our last roommate was named Elijah. As for how I found you…" James' eyes wandered to Sam's… Unique hat, which was still perched upon his head. "Seriously, do you even wash that thing?"

Sam laughed. Hard. James' smile widened in response and he soon joined in on the fun. The two kept laughing for a few moments, mostly in relief. After a little while, they stopped laughing.

James wiped a tear from his eye. "Oh, it's good to see you again Sam."

Sam nodded in response, still chuckling slightly. "Yeah, it's nice to know I'm not alone here."

James smiled. "Mhmm. Before I thought I'd have to fix everything myself. Now that you're here…" He paused for comedic effect. "Well, I guess I'll just have to work harder now." He joked.

Sam rolled his eyes. "Oh, ha ha. You're so _funny_ James. Tell me again why I was so relieved to see you again?"

James shook his head. "As much as I enjoy talking to someone again, you've got a match coming up. There's a park about twenty blocks west of here. Meet me there when you can, I'll be waiting."

Sam nodded. "Right, I'll see you then James."

As James walked out of the room, he turned his head over his shoulder. "Oh, and make sure you win, alright? If you do, your next opponent is Cardin Winchester, and that asshole needs to be brought down a peg or seven."

Sam grinned at James. "I mean, that was the plan anyways, but sure. I'll catch up with you later then."

James nodded and walked out of the room.

Sam was a bit worried that he'd be too distracted for his next match.

* * *

I snuck out of the preparation area that Sam had been using and snuck into the stands of the stadium. I wanted to watch Sam fight to see for myself how far along he'd come. He was obviously pretty strong, since he had managed to win a fight in the Atlas annual tournament.

As he and his opponent walked into the ring, I took stock of Sam's opponent first. He was a few years older than Sam or I, probably just about to attend one of the big academies and using the fame from this tournament to help him get in. He looked stereotypical musclehead, and had a giant warhammer. Shaking the thoughts of a man that I'd never meet again to the side, I turned my attention to Sam.

Sam always caught attention in a crowd, since he was fairly tall and he had that stupid hat on at all times, making it so that you could pick him out from about a kilometer away if you had to. Outside of the hat though, he was wearing a dark blue hoodie and jeans, though there seemed to be some red around the wrists of his hoodie. I then took notice of the giant white snowflake on the back of his hoodie.

 _Huh._ I thought to myself. _He's sponsored by Schnee? Adopted family, or something else?_ I wondered.

I saw Sam's weapon on his back. It appeared to be some form of shotgun, though the jury was out on whether or not it would stay like that. This was Remnant after all. Ever since I'd seen Coco's purse change into a minigun, I just assumed that there was no physical limit to what a weapon could change into here.

The two fighters stood opposite each other as the announcer counted them in, and on his signal, the two immediately brought up their weapons. The other warrior seemed satisfied with his warhammer, and immediately stomped on the ground, sending a wave of rocks and debris towards Sam.

However, Sam merely rolled to the side, avoiding the rocks by miles. His shotgun started shifting, and ended in the form of a sniper rifle. He immediately fired off a few shots while he was kneeled on the ground. I checked the man's aura levels on the big screen. Either his aura levels were weak, or Sam's shots HURT. However, what puzzled me was that Sam's aura was also decreasing as he shot at the man, so he was somehow using a Semblance as well.

The older boy was clearly enraged by Sam's actions and charged towards Sam. I'll give the man credit, he managed to deflect Sam's shots with his hammer pretty well, but several of Sam's shots managed to make it through. As Sam's opponent was nearing him, Sam stood up and made his gun turn back into its shotgun form.

The warhammer-wielding fighter swung vertically at Sam, probably hoping to follow-up with another strike. Sam surprised him by sliding towards his opponent, firing a shotgun facing up and away from himself.

I should probably correct myself now. Sam's shotgun isn't a simple shotgun. It's a freaking CANNON. The sound of it going off practically deafened everyone in the stands, sent Sam's opponent flying away, and even forced Sam to slide back, forcing him to tumble off of the edge of the ring ungracefully, causing him to ring out.

Thankfully for Sam, his opponent had been moving much, much faster than he was, so he had been ringed out first… What an awful end to a match. Sam was looking down at his weapon in absolute shock, as if he had absolutely no idea what had just happened.

* * *

Sam had absolutely no idea what just happened. He had tested out the shotgun mode before! Although… He had never tried enhancing the shotgun's ammo, soooo…. Maybe that was it?

He sighed. That match… Had actually been a little bit embarrassing for him. The whole reason why he was in the tournament in the first place was so that he could show off what he was capable of… Only to show that the recoil of his weapon was so extreme it almost made him lose his match. Talk about unprofessional. It didn't help that his opponent kept sending him the evil eye every time they met outside of combat.

Either way, he wanted to meet with James before he headed back home, which required him to get to the park that James had mentioned earlier. Sam wasn't sure why his old friend wanted to meet in a park, but but whatever.

And wasn't THAT weird to think about. For almost ten years now, he'd been on his own, preparing for his time in Beacon, doing his best to make sure that he'd be combat ready when he gets there. Then James shows up and now he has help… Well, Sam wasn't really going to complain, but still. It would take awhile for Sam to wrap his head around this new surprise.

"Sam, over here!" he heard from his right.

Sam turned towards the voice and saw James. He smiled at his friend and approached him. James smiled in response, and waved at Sam.

"Glad you could join me Sam." James said.

Sam chuckled. "I'm glad you invited me. Now we can figure out what the hell we're going to do."

James nodded. "Yeah. Let's start with questions though, since I've got the feeling we're gonna have a lot."

Sam pulled out his scroll. "Well, I'm not sure how much time I have, I'm expected to be back in at least half an hour, so I've got maybe fifteen minutes before I leave."

"That'll have to do for today. We'll have to arrange a time to meet again in the future." James responded.

"Sounds good." Sam said with a nod. "Can I get your scroll information? That would make contacting you easier."

James shook his head. "I don't have a scroll. I don't have the money for it, and any money I get I put towards training and food."

Sam cocked an eyebrow at James.

"Why don't you tell me your story then?" Sam asked.

James shrugged. "I'll give you the highlights, 'Cause there's not much to it. I woke up in Mistral. I was taught how to pickpocket, and my aura was unlocked so that I wouldn't get stabbed by an angry merchant. Soon after, I unlocked my Semblance, but had to leave because it made me really noticeable, and that was bad for the people helping me. Got on a airship to Patch, spent a bit there, actually managed to meet Ruby, in fact." Sam's eyes widened in surprise at that. "Oh, relax. I only had one conversation with her, I doubt she'd even recognize me now. Anyways, that place wasn't really great for me to support myself in, so I left for Atlas. Made a bunch of money here, then a hunstman chased me out. I went to Vacuo after that, stayed there for a while, made a bunch of money, then went back and forth between Vacuo and Mistral in order to train myself. That's basically it."

"Huh." Sam said. "Well… Sorry to hear that…"

James shrugged. "I'm used to it now. I might not have a lot of money, and I might not have great training, but it's given me the chance to go toe-to-toe with Grimm, so that'll be useful going into Beacon."

Sam had to agree, that was certainly true. "Yeah, I'm going to combat school here, and we're not allowed to fight Grimm until we're fifteen, and even then that's with huntsmen supervision."

"Anyways, how've you been? I see that the Schnee apparently like you…" James said, referring to Sam's outfit.

Sam looked down at his clothes. "Yeah, these are new, but they're good for combat so I guess I'll probably keep them…" Sam explained.

"But yeah, apparently I was found in a blizzard near the Schnee family's mansion, and a few servants found me. They took me in and found out that I didn't have anywhere to go, so they kept me. I'm not a Schnee, not really. I'm kind of a ward of the family, so I'm under their protection, but I do chores around the house, and it's kind of expected that I'll become a servant when I get older. I'm… Still not sure if that's an official 'thing' or not, but they've helped me a lot, so I haven't looked into it too much." Sam said. He then came to a realization. "Oh right! I'm best friends with Weiss." James stilled at Sam's information. "Um… I probably should have mentioned that first, huh?"

"You… Are best friends… With Weiss Schnee." James deadpanned.

"Yeah."

"Weiss Schnee, the 'W' of team RWBY, the girl whose main crippling weakness was that she doesn't know how to interact with people."

"Uh… Yeah."

"The girl who in canon is incredibly lonely all the time, just looking for a friend, and doesn't really know how to get one? THAT Weiss?"

"Yeah, pretty much. If it helps, she's starting to act like she did in canon. It's really weird."

James' thought process ground to a halt. "... What?"

"Well, I mean, she was so friendly whenever Winter was around, but since Winter left, she's been getting worse and worse. Nowadays she REALLY doesn't like it whenever I head out and don't take her with me. And if I don't tell her ahead of time that I'm leaving? I'm a dead man."

James placed both his hands on his forehead. "Okay… We'll deal with this when the time comes… Hopefully the changes that you made are only good changes…"

Sam shrugged. "Hey, I can't see how they'd be bad. Even if they were, I don't regret it. Weiss is my best friend now. Hell, before you showed up, I was almost tempted to break up team RWBY to partner up with her."

"Don't even joke about that. Breaking up team RWBY would have so many repercussions it's not even funny. We'd basically be in no better a situation than anyone else."

Sam rubbed his neck sheepishly. "Yeah, sorry about that, but that was the best I could come up with."

James ran a hand through his hair and let out a deep breath. "Alright, we'll have to talk plans soon, but that'll take up too much time. What's your Semblance?"

"Oh, it's actually really cool. So, anything that my aura touches, I can 'amplify' it. So far, I've only managed to get it to work with dust or other people's Semblances, but I think that I can still improve it."

James' eyebrows shot up. "Okay, that's… Great, actually. But how do you touch other people with your aura?"

Sam pat his shotgun on his back. "My gun uses aura rounds, so all I'm doing is shooting out aura instead of bullets. Because of that, I can transfer my aura to people or amplify their Semblance. Otherwise, it just drains a bit more than a normal bullet."

James' eyes widened. "Wow. How come everyone doesn't have one of those?" He asked.

Sam shrugged. "Dunno. This one was apparently a prototype, and they haven't figured out how to get dust to work with it yet. Outside of that, it's probably not cheap, so maybe that's the issue?"

James nodded. "That makes sense."

"So what about you? What's your Semblance?" Sam asked.

James grinned. "While your Semblance is awesome Sam, mine's a bit cooler."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "Uh, is that a challenge I hear?" Sam asked.

James chuckled. "Oh, there's no challenge. My Semblance…" James trailed off for dramatic effect. "... Is time manipulation."

"... No really, what is it?"

"Ha! No, that's actually it. I can control the flow of time. I can make it so that I experience time at a faster or slower rate than everyone else."

Sam took a moment to process the information. "That… Sounds completely broken. What's the catch?"

James grimaced. "Well, admittedly, I don't really know how to train a Semblance very well, and I've never had anyone tell me, so I don't know if my training is ideal… But my aura reserves are low, and only got lower recently. The tradeoff for the drop is that the most I can manipulate time flow shot through the roof, but still."

Sam nodded. "Well, I can help you with your training. Do you know if you can affect other people with it?"

James shook his head. "No idea. Anything that's touching me gets affected, but I've never told another person what my Semblance is. I'd rather keep it as an ace in the hole."

Sam tilted his head in confusion. "Um… Okay, I guess. How are you going to get into Beacon then?"

"From what I can remember, there's a battle exam. I'll take that and do my hardest not to show off my Semblance."

"Oh, okay. That makes sense then." Sam replied. He looked down at his phone. "As much as I want to stay here and talk to you, I've got to get back soon. When and where do you want to meet up again?" Sam asked.

James shrugged. "I have no idea what your schedule is like. I'll just train in this park from here on out. Meet me here when you can."

Sam sighed. "Where are you going to sleep James?" He asked, already probably knowing the answer.

"Tonight? In this park. Probably can't do that too often though, so probably in side-alleys, under bridges. You know, normal stuff."

"James, I can probably get you a room in the Schnee mansion. You don't have to live like a hobo."

James shook his head. "No, it would be too suspicious for me to show up, especially since they know we've never met before. No, just let them know that you have a new sparring partner, and I'll do fine on my own."

Sam crossed his arms and frowned. "I don't like this."

James rolled his eyes. "Sam, compared to Vacuo, Atlas is absolutely tame. I'll be fine living on the streets here, so don't worry about me."

"Fine." Sam gritted out. "But don't think I won't be bringing you food!... 'Cause I totally will!"

James smiled at his friend. "That sounds great Sam, I appreciate the help."

Sam stood there for a few more moments. "Alright, I guess I'll just… Leave." Sam said.

"Alright, bye Sam. See you around."

"See ya."

And with that, Sam left the park. That day had been good for the both of the world-travellers. Knowing that they had a friend to help them on their journey was an immense relief for their stress levels. In the future, the two would train, would grow and develop into a nigh-unbeatable duo, but tonight, for the first time in a long time…

They rested easy.

 **A/N:**

 **Here we are. I quite liked how this chapter turned out, so I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's reaction to it.**

 **Speaking of reactions, can I just say that I'm really flattered by how many people liked this based off the first chapter? I mean, 45 followers for only 1 chapter? That's pretty good in my mind.**

 **So, for anyone concerned about the amount of OC's/SI's, this is it. No more major OC's in this story, I'm not bringing in anyone else. Sam's in this because he's helping me edit my story, and I wanted to bring in someone as a partner. Sam's a good friend of mine, and he's watched RWBY, so it made sense to include him.**

 **The next chapter will be the start of Beacon, so there's going to be a bit of a timeskip here, but we'll get a few flashbacks to the time where Sam and I train up. I just wanted to keep a few surprises for you guys in the future, while still giving you all a general idea as to what I can do.**

 **Review responses:**

 **Warlord of Chaos - Nice to hear that you like it! Hope you liked how my MC is turning out. I'm doing my best to write my personality without making myself seem perfect, but it's not easy.**

 **Densho - Alright, fair enough. I'll get rid of that in the last chapter, and I'll be sure not to use it in the future. I had just seen it once or twice, and figured it'd be cool, but if it takes you out of immersion, it's not really too important that I keep it in.**

 **Bomberguy789 - So, first of all, thank you for the review, I really do appreciate criticism. I didn't get too much constructive criticism in my other stories, so this really helps me out. So, without further ado, here are my responses:**

 **(Pickpocketing) Answered in this chapter, but in case you missed it, it's in order to prevent the kids from getting stabbed by shifty merchants/other criminals.**

 **(Attracting attention) Poorly worded on my part. Less about having Cinder's group target me and more about me having the element of surprise when I end up striking out. Every advantage I can get, y'know?**

 **(OPness) Yeah, hopefully I put some of those worries to rest, but this is obviously a major thing to address. I did a bit of that in this chapter, but I'll definitely keep coming back to it in the future. Hopefully my explanations help portray that right now, all I've basically got is fancy super-speed.**

 **EDIT: Thought Iaido mixed with Iatsu. Not sure what Iatsu is, or whether it even exists, but I fixed it now.**


	3. Sam's Stupid Plan

Beacon. Named as such because it was meant to not only be a beacon for the rest of the world, but their graduates are meant to be beacons of hope for the rest of the world. As I stare at the school from the airship, I can certainly agree that it looks the part. Towering over a cliff, overlooking a large body of water, it certainly paints a memorable picture in the mind of anyone who sees it.

Now if only I could enjoy the view…

"Sam, get out from behind me."

"NO! She'll see me!" Sam said, lightly jabbing me in the back, causing me to stumble forwards a step.

I sigh in exasperation.

"Sam, Weiss is going to see you eventually, don't you think it'll be better if she sees you sooner rather than later?"

The problem, as it were, is that Jacques Schnee decided that, since Weiss was going to go to Beacon, he was going to send Sam in order to 'protect her'. He had used his not inconsiderable connections in order to secure Sam a spot in Beacon a year early. I had no doubt that Sam could probably get in a year earlier anyways, but Jacques was a bastard like that. He wouldn't even run the risk of Sam failing, so he wouldn't let Sam even try. That pissed Sam off a bit, but Jacques basically ruled his life, so there wasn't much he could do about it.

However, Sam had yet to tell Weiss that he was going to be in her year. Mostly because he didn't want to know how she would react when he told her that he was here to 'protect' her. The whole reason why she chose Beacon over the Atlas military academy is because she wanted to be independent from her father.

While Sam wasn't going to actually report on Weiss to Jacques (because he liked Weiss WAY more than that jerk), he knew that Weiss wouldn't give him the chance to explain, and would probably be angry at him for several days.

And an angry Weiss was something that Sam always did his best to avoid… Not like it really made much of a difference. Sam's entire personality seemed to frustrate Weiss most days. She still hadn't actually met me, but Sam had told her about his training partner from time to time. Not much, just that they were training.

"Sam, seriously. You are actually just making it worse."

"James, you're my friend, but I need you to shut up right now. You have no idea how bad it is."

I pinched the bridge of my nose. "And please tell me, HOW do you plan on keeping this a secret from her when you're both AT THE SAME SCHOOL?!"

In response, Sam reached into his backpack and pulled out a mask. It a was perfectly circular, pure white, and only had eyeholes in it.

"... You're serious."

Sam only nodded in response, strapping on the mask and clasping it behind his head.

I rolled my eyes and shook my head. Sam had given me his hat for 'safekeeping' so that Weiss couldn't use it as 'evidence'. I knew exactly when Weiss was going to find out about Sam.

I smirked a little bit. In fact… I think I had a good idea how to make it memorable.

"Hey… What's with that smile? That's not a good smile." Sam questioned.

I waved away his concerns. "It's nothing."

"Oh no, you're not getting away with that! What-"

"Weiss might hear you."

That shut Sam up instantly. He was probably glaring at me from behind my back.

"... I hate you. So much."

"I bask in your hate."

It was at that point that our airship arrived. Weiss was one of the first off of the ship with her luggage cart of dust-filled suitcases.

"Well, she's gone now, so you can start acting like a normal person again." I said, walking towards the exit.

Sam looked nervous. "If it's alright with you, I think I'll stick back here for a few seconds, make sure that she won't notice me."

I roll my eyes again. "Whatever makes you feel better Sam. I'll see you around."

And with that, I fade into the crowd. At this point, it's probably one of the things that I was best at. My looks had always been fairly unremarkable, and my clothes match. Black hoodie, blue jeans, the kind of person you were unlikely to look at more than once. On top of that, I had lived in crowded areas for most of my life before even arriving in Remnant. Now that it had practically been required for my survival to blend in, I was all but invisible while within the throng of people heading towards the auditorium. I glanced back, and saw Yang running through the crowd with a small group of people, and Ruby getting left behind her.

A large part of me wanted to go back and help Ruby. Honestly, it was hard to convince myself not to. However, Sam and I had discussed how we were going to go into this situation and make use of our knowledge. We were going to limit how much we changed the events that we remember, and try to give our knowledge of the future to Ozpin without him believing that we are completely insane.

We were still working on that last part, since that was a pretty recent development. Honestly, I'm not sure how either of us had missed the idea of simply telling Ozpin what happens, but it was only after I had applied to Beacon that I realized that that was a legitimate option. I think I had just got so caught up in the whole 'save the world' mentality that I completely forgot that I could actually tell people about it, and Ozpin was in the best position to help me.

Again thought, convincing him that my information is legitimate would be the hard part, so Sam and I had developed the idea to send him anonymous packets of information about events. Some innocent and harmless, tiny things that only Ozpin would probably be aware to.

Then drop things like the existence of the Maidens, Amber's injuries, and then warnings about what are going to happen. Ideally, Ozpin would never know that I would be involved at all. Sam had volunteered to be the one to actually send the information, so that if Ozpin did manage to track down who had sent the messages, he would only suspect Sam.

I didn't really want either of us to be tracked, mostly because Ozpin would no doubt bring us into his 'inner ring', putting us on Cinder's hit list, preventing us from helping out further. I had argued with Sam that I should be the one more in the spotlight, since Sam had family and people that still cared about him, whereas I didn't.

Sam… Hadn't liked that line of thought.

" _Alright, that's enough of that." Sam said._

" _What? You know I'm right Sam."_

 _Sam shook his head. "No. This isn't about logic anymore James. You're my friend. You're living. Everyone will probably just think that I'm there to be an insider to report on the Schnee family. Less likely to be targeted."_

 _I frowned. "I don't-"_

 _Sam held a hand up. "Besides… You've put so much effort into not being considered a threat… Wouldn't that all go to waste if Ozpin kept sending you to his office?"_

And that was the end of that. Sam simply wouldn't hear any more arguments about the subject anymore, so I eventually had to accept that he would be the figurehead.

I just hoped that it wouldn't come back to bite me later.

But so long as Sam and I didn't change much… We should be able to fix things.

* * *

Sam had poked his head out of the airship as soon as he heard the explosion. He saw Blake say something and then leave, and Weiss soon followed after her. Knowing that the coast was clear, Sam breathed a sigh of relief.

Some might call his actions ridiculous, but those people had obviously not seen how angry Weiss could get at people close to her when she was angry at them. They had no idea how loud she could get when she found out her father was trying to control her life. This was both at the same time.

While Sam certainly had a bit more leeway with certain actions in Weiss' eyes, on account of being her best (and only) friend, that didn't mean that he was guaranteed to leave the encounter completely unscathed.

So he hid.

It wasn't cowardly!... It was smart. Yes, smart. That was it. After all, why would he willingly get into a situation where he was guaranteed to get hurt when he could avoid it? Answer: he shouldn't!

Granted, he probably should have just told Weiss immediately… But it had skipped his mind. After Jacques had told Sam that he would be going to Beacon, Sam had scheduled a training session with James at a local gym, and so went there. Afterwards, James had brought up the idea of sending their information on the future to Ozpin, and well… He had a lot on his mind that night. Afterwards, it had just never occurred to him until moments before getting on the plane, when he saw Weiss in the crowd. Then he quickly bought the blank mask that he now wore and got back on the airship, using his friend as cover. Not that he needed it, Weiss seemed incredibly distracted the entire journey.

However, Sam could see her glancing down at her scroll every once in awhile, opening it, scrolling through it, probably for messages, close it, and then frown harder than she had been moments prior.

It had taken him a little while to figure out what was upsetting her.

He had forgotten to say goodbye, because he was going with her and hadn't realized it.

 _She's going to kill me three times over._ Sam thought to himself when he figured out that mystery. It didn't help that Sam felt like utter trash because of his forgetfulness. Weiss was his best friend, and knowing that she was expecting him to say goodbye, itmade him feel like the absolute biggest trash bag on Remnant.

Hence the hiding.

Anyways, now the coast was clear, and Ruby had gone up in a fireball, so he was able to approach. Jaune had just offered help to Ruby, so Sam figured he'd join in.

Even though James thought it would be best if they didn't interact with the RWBY cast, Sam didn't think that they'd impact the timeline too much if they made friends.

Approaching the two, Sam noticed that Jaune and Ruby were walking around the fountain. Figuring that now was as good a time as any to introduce himself, Sam approached the two.

"Hi!" Sam said, waving at the pair to get their attention. "Um, I was held back a bit and I kinda… Didn't hear where we're supposed to be going. Can either of you help?"

Ruby tilted her head in confusion at Sam. "Um, why are you wearing a mask?" She asked.

Sam rubbed his neck sheepishly. "Well, you see… I kinda sorta… Forgot to tell one of my friends that I was coming, so I'm… Surprising her." He lied weakly.

Luckily, both of the people in front of him were naive enough to believe what Sam said at face value, even if they still thought that his mask was really weird.

"Well, uh, we… Don't really know where we're going either…" Jaune trailed off. "So… We could try and find it together, I guess?"

Sam nodded in agreement. "Yeah, alright." He held his hand out in offer. "My name's Sam Scott. nice to meet ya."

Jaune shook the offered hand. "Jaune Arc. Short, sweet, rolls off the tongue…"

"-And apparently the ladies love it." Ruby said with a giggle, causing Jaune to slump his shoulders and Sam to laugh. "I'm Ruby, Ruby Rose! Uh, could I… See your weapon?" Ruby asked, indicating Sam's shotgun that he had attached to his back.

"Umm… Sure, why not!" Sam said, unhooking his weapon. "I have a few connections with Atlas military, so I've got access to some prototype stuff." He pressed a button and switched the button on his gun to change it to sniper form.

Ruby's eyes sparkled with excitement and she let out an excited squeal of glee. Hearing 'prototype weapon' in regards to Atlas, forefront leader of weapons technology in the world, she really wanted to see what Sam had managed to get.

"My Semblance normally only has a really short range, but this gun uses aura instead of bullets, so it extends my range a long way." Sam explained.

"Oh, WOW! That's so cool! Canyoustillusenormalbullets? Howdoesitworkwithdust? CanIuseit?" Ruby shot off too quickly for Sam to react to even one of the questions.

Luckily for Sam, Jaune came to the rescue. "Um, guys? Don't we still have to get to the auditorium?"

Ruby's eyes widened a second later, and then her cheeks flushed in embarrassment. She chuckled nervously. "Oh… Right. Sorry about that… Sis says I can get a bit… Carried away…" She said, desperately looking anywhere but at her two new friends.

"Heh. It's alright." Sam responded. "We should get going though. I need to find my friend, and I think Ozpin's speech is soon."

Jaune nodded. "Right, let's go."

And with that, the trio of new friends embarked on their first step towards the start of their careers at Beacon.

* * *

Ruby was exhausted. She had been so full of energy ever since that morning, when she had realized that she would be going to Beacon. On top of that, all the nervousness that normally came with a new school had been amplified several times over because of Ruby's lack of experience with making friends, making her even more exhausted. But hey, at least she'd made… Two friends? Sam seemed nice at least. Jaune had talked to her more though. But Sam had a cool weapon… Didn't that mean he was cooler? Did that matter to Ruby?

All these thoughts swam through her head, but were interrupted the moment Yang dropped onto the sleeping bag next to Ruby.

"It's like a big slumber party!" Yang exclaimed.

"I'm pretty sure dad wouldn't approve of all the boys…" Ruby snarked back.

"I know I do…" Yang purred.

Ruby rolled her eyes at Yang's response. Of course Yang would say that. Sometimes Ruby wondered how her dad hadn't had a heart attack yet, given Yang's incredibly flirty attitude and way of dressing. Then again, her dad was the best dad ever, so the odds of him having a heart attack was low.

"Whatcha thinking about there sis?" Yang asked.

Ruby looked at her sister, then went back to staring at the ceiling. "I'm just… Thinking about today, I guess. I mean, come on sis. I'm in BEACON. It's always been my dream, you know?"

Now it was Yang's turn to roll her eyes. "No Ruby. I had NO IDEA that your dream was to go to Beacon, become the best huntress, and then go on awesome adventures. You only tell us once a week."

"Shut UP!" Ruby said, throwing a pillow at her sister in retaliation. "I just… Can't really believe it. It hasn't really sunk in yet."

Yang nodded. "Yeah, I get ya. If I'm being honest? It still hasn't hit me that I graduated Signal yet."

"Yeah, so imagine how I feel!" Ruby pouted. "At least you GOT to graduate!"

Yang giggled. "Yeah, I guess. How did your friends take the news?"

Ruby's friends at Signal actually hadn't taken the news very well. Ruby had always been a bit of an outsider in her group of friends, but with her getting accepted into Beacon two years earlier than the rest of them, they kind of just shunned her. It wasn't anything too bad… They just… Didn't really talk to her anymore.

But even still, they were her friends… So she wouldn't tell Yang that. She would beat them up.

"Oh, you know… They were kinda upset, but they got over it…" Ruby lied.

Yang narrowed her eyes at her sister's words. Ruby wasn't… The best liar in the world, but Yang had a feeling that Ruby didn't want her to press any further.

"Well, alright… If you say so… So, outside of that girl that yelled at you earlier, made any friends?" Yang asked.

Ruby nodded. "Yep!" She said. "Two guys, Jaune and Sam. Jaune's… Nice, but he's kinda awkward. Just like me!"

Yang sweatdropped at Ruby's words. "That's not something you should advertise…" She muttered.

Ruby ignored her sister and continued talking anyways. "And Sam's… Weird. He's wearing a mask because he's surprising a friend of his… But he's got this super-awesome weapon from Atlas! It's so cool! It shoots aura instead of bullets!"

"Huh. That does sound kinda cool." Yang responded.

"I know, right?! I mean, how did he even GET that?!" Ruby exclaimed.

"Alright sis, calm down. You're getting too loud." Yang said, putting a hand on her sister's shoulder in a vague attempt to calm her down from her 'new weapon high'.

Yang suddenly had an idea. "Hey rubes. You're on a roll today, right? Making all kinds of friends? How 'bout you try to make one more before the night's over?"

Ruby groaned. "Yaaaaang! I don't need more friends! Three's plenty!"

"Tell you what sis. You try to make one more friend tonight… And I won't bother you about this again, okay?" Yang offered, hoping that her sister would take it. After all, even if Ruby had made some friends, Yang wanted her sister to have a lot of friends that she could rely on, and the first day of school was the best time to make new friends.

"Hmph. Fiiiine." Ruby replied, before she sat up on her sleeping bag and started to look around the room, scrutinizing everyone who fell under her gaze. She decided to focus more on the girls in the room than the guys, since she already had two boys as friends.

After a few minutes of searching, Ruby saw a girl that she recognized from earlier. She had helped Ruby out when that mean girl Weiss had yelled at her for sneezing. She was just sitting against a wall, reading a book with a candle. She was very clearly sitting far away from everyone, and her body language just screamed 'don't talk to me'.

A perfect choice for Ruby's new friend!

So Ruby pointed her out to her sister. "I kinda met that girl… But she left before I could talk to her much. She helped me out after I exploded."

"Hm. Alright, let's go say 'hi'!" Yang said, grabbing her sister and dragging her towards the girl brooding in the corner with a book.

Ruby could do nothing more than sigh as her sister forcibly dragged her towards the black-haired girl. She loved her sister dearly, but she could be… Difficult for Ruby at times. Like right now, for example.

The girl that they were approaching seemed to notice them, and lowered her book slightly in order to see them better. The girl with black and red hair seemed pretty reluctant, whereas the blonde in front seemed way too enthusiastic for this time at night.

"Hi!" said Yang.

"Hey." The ravenette replied.

"Um… I'm Yang Xiao Long, and this is my sister, Ruby Rose!" Yang introduced.

Ruby simply chuckled nervously and awkwardly waved at the girl in front of her.

"... Blake Belladonna." Blake replied. "... Aren't you the girl that… Exploded?"

Yang started giggling, and Ruby's face gained a dust of pink on her cheeks. "That WASN'T my fault…"

Blake smirked slightly, before going back to her book. Silence passed between the trio for several moments before Yang decided to but in.

"Sooo… Nice night, huh?"

"Mhmm." Blake responded absentmindedly.

"I, uh… Like your bow!"

"Thanks…"

Yang was about to continue when Ruby decided to intervene. She noticed Sam walking nearby them and figured she could use them as a distraction. "Oh hey there Sam! Nice to see you again!" She said, pointing out her new friend.

At that, the other two decided to focus on the young man in question, who turned his head to look at Ruby. His head looked back and forth, as if looking for something. His shoulders sagged with relief, and then he approached the group. He was wearing a plain t-shirt with plaid pajama bottoms. He was very obviously fit, but was going for a more lean runner's build than a bodybuilder.

"Hey Ruby. How's it going?" Sam asked.

"...Dude, what's with that mask?" Yang asked.

Sam chuckled nervously. "Oh, you know. I didn't tell my friend that I had gotten into Beacon, so I'm trying to surprise her."

"... REALLY." Yang and Blake voiced their suspicions at the same time.

"Uh, yeah. Yeah, that's totally why."

Blake narrowed her eyes in suspicion. She was about to open up her mouth to voice her suspicions before another young man approached Sam from behind. He was the same height as Sam, but didn't have Sam's mask. Instead he had slightly disheveled hair and a toothless smile that implied that he was about to cause some mischief.

"Hey SAM, how's it going SAM? I set up our sleeping bags SAM, when are you thinking about turning in SAM?" Everyone looked at the newcomer strangely because of how he was talking. However, after a few seconds, Sam's posture went rigid when he realized what he was doing.

"James, I swear-"

"Swear what SAM? What's wrong with what I'm doing SAM? You need to tell me what's wrong SAM."

"James. we can talk-"

"Did someone say Sam?" Another voice cut in.

Everyone turned to look at the newcomer. It was Weiss, looking somewhat confused.

Sam gulped before chuckling sheepishly.

"No, of course not! No Sams here, no siree-" Sam was cut off when he felt something land on his head.

Weiss blinked several times, even more confused before everything clicked. " _SAM_." She hissed, having identified Sam's incredibly unique hat, which was now positioned squarely on the top of his head.

Sam reached to the top of his head, grabbed his hat, and stared at it disbelievingly. He looked next to him, at the other boy who had placed the hat on his head. He would have had a look of betrayal on his face, but with the mask, no one could tell.

"W-why?" Sam asked, his voice dripping with the betrayed feelings that he had.

"Oh gee, I dunno. Because you're being a moron? Because I'm sick of you hiding behind me? Because your plan sucks? Because I'm frustrated with you? Because it's funny?" He shrugged. "Take your pick."

Sam looked about to reply when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Looking down at it, he identified it as Weiss', and refused to turn around.

Everyone else noticed, and they seemed to get nervous as Weiss got angrier and angrier. However, Sam simply stared off into the distance.

"Um, Sam?" Ruby said, trying to catch his attention.

"I'm not turning around." Sam refused. "If I don't see her, I can't see how angry she is."

That only served to make Weiss even angrier, something that Ruby hadn't thought possible.

"Uh, dude? You should really turn around." Yang said.

"..." Sam said no words, simply looked forwards. While on the outside he might have looked calm and collected, that image was shattered by the fact that he was shaking in absolute terror.

… Weiss looked like a volcano about to explode now.

"... Oh boy." Blake said, covering her bow with her hands.

"SAMUEL SCOTT!" Weiss screeched. "WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU DOING HERE?!"

Sam flinched. He turned around to face Weiss, and then slid his mask of his face. He raised his hands up. "Um, surprise?" He said, doing 'jazz hands' to somehow desperately try to make things better.

Weiss was about to explode again when she looked around the room. Noticing everyone staring at them, she scowled, and grabbed Sam by the arm. "We're taking this elsewhere!" She exclaimed, dragging Sam away.

Sam didn't even try to resist, he simply bowed his head in defeat and allowed Weiss to drag him through the room and out the door. Before he was completely out of sight, he glared at the other boy one more time before he disappeared out the doorway.

The entire room was silent for a few moments before the dull background chatter started building up again.

"Uh, is he gonna be okay?" Ruby asked the other guy.

The person in question waved off Ruby's question while staring at the door. "He'll be fine. They've been best friends since they were five, but the idiot forgot to tell her that he'd gotten accepted a year early, so she's pissed."

"Ooooh. I get it now." Ruby replied.

"So cutie, what's your name?" Yang asked.

"Although, I wouldn't want to be in his shoes… From what he told me, Weiss has a nasty temper, and he's been on the receiving end of it a fair few times." He explained, still staring at the door, seemingly not realizing that Yang had said anything.

Yang was slightly annoyed that the boy hadn't responded to her. "Well, that's a pretty long name. Any nicknames we could use instead?"

That seemed to get the boy's attention. He turned to face Yang. "Sorry, were you talking to me? I thought you were talking to someone else." He explained sheepishly. He smiled slightly, and gave the group a small wave. "I'm James. James Smith. Nice to meet you all."

"Hi James! Nice to meet you! I'm Ruby, this is my sister Yang, and that's-" Ruby started.

"Blake. The girl trying to read her book in peace." Blake said, her face practically buried in her book now, obviously not wanting these people to disturb her anymore.

James chuckled. "Sorry about that. I just saw the chance to get Sam to stop being stupid. I'll leave you all alone."

And with that, the other boy left.

"Well… I guess we should get back to our stuff too. It was nice meeting you Blake!" Ruby said.

"Yeah, we should hang out sometime!" Yang said.

 _Please no…_ Blake thought to herself, hoping to any deity listening that her contact with that group would be minimal at best.

* * *

"James, whyyyyy?" Sam groaned.

It had been the next day. After Weiss had chewed out Sam, she had somehow managed to lock Sam out of the room, forcing Sam to sleep in the hallway. That was why Sam had bags under his eyes, and was attempting to glare daggers at me. We'd been heading towards the locker room

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, get over it. I was angry at you for deciding to ignore the plan to stay away from the main cast, so that's how I punished you."

That didn't stop Sam's attempt at forcing a second Semblance by glaring harder at me. A few seconds later, he realized it wasn't going to happen, and sighed. "Alright, I guess that's fair. But I really didn't think that it'd change much."

I shook my head. "Maybe, maybe not. We don't know. If we're trying to change things anyways, and I doubt you'd be able to stay away from Weiss for too long, I think we should consider scrapping that plan."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "So we're making friends with them?"

I shrugged apathetically. "If you want to, feel free. Maybe it'll help. Maybe it'll make things worse, at this point, we've already made a fair few changes, so who knows what'll end up happening in the end."

I then smirked at Sam a little bit. "And it's not like you'd listen to me if I told you otherwise, right?"

Sam rubbed his neck sheepishly. "Heh… Yeah, pretty much. I mean, Weiss is a great friend, and I kinda want to meet the rest of them."

"Fair enough. We'll just have to work harder to change key events, and hope that they don't change too much because of what we've done."

Sam nodded his acceptance at my words, and we soon entered the locker rooms, deciding to shelf the subject for later, so we don't run the risk of anyone overhearing us.

Sam sees a head of white and makes a beeline for Weiss. I decide to follow him, mostly for my own amusement. Weiss is currently talking to Pyrrha Nikos, whose record is the exact same as what it was in canon.

"Weiss! I'm sorr-" Sam starts.

"Did you hear something, Pyrrha?" Weiss asked. "It sounded like someone I DON'T WANT TO TALK TO RIGHT NOW." She seethed.

Pyrrha looks confusedly back and forth between Sam and Weiss. Her gaze then lands on me, seeing that I'm chuckling at Sam's dejected expression. I notice that she's desperately looking for a way out of this situation, and I shake my head at her.

"Um… I'm sorry?" Pyrrha responds.

"Weiss-" Sam tries again.

"It's just that sometimes this voice that DOESN'T GET THE MESSAGE decides to speak up, and I'd REALLY prefer it if it'd just GO AWAY."

Sam lowers his head in defeat, and slowly sulks away. I keep laughing silently. I wave Pyrrha goodbye, which she awkwardly returns, and then I follow Sam.

As I leave, I hear Weiss ask "So Pyrrha, any idea who you want on your team?"

I follow Sam to our assigned lockers to see him lightly banging his head on his own locker.

"Dammit." Bang. "Dammit." Bang. "Dammit."

I watch this cycle repeat for a few more moments before I decide to intervene.

"Alright Sam, come on. We've got to get ready." I say, interrupting his self-deprecation.

"James… She HATES me…" Sam whines.

I roll my eyes. "She doesn't hate you Sam, she's just mad at you for being an idiot and making her worry, on top of forgetting to tell her, your best friend, that you'd be joining her class at Beacon." I pause, realizing that I'd actually made things worse-

BANG. He hits his head harder on the locker.

"Stop that!" I exclaim, grabbing Sam's shoulder and dragging him away from his locker. "Look, give her time, talk to her tomorrow after classes. She's probably going to need you after she realizes that she isn't going to be the leader of her team."

Sam sighs. "Yeah, you're right… I just feel like trash."

I nod. "Makes sense."

Before Sam can glare at me again, I open my locker. "Not sure if I'll be able to use the whole 'rocket locker' thing unfortunately…" I mutter to myself.

Sam shook his head in exasperation. "I still don't get why you don't just buy a scroll…" Sam responds.

"They're expensive." I reply.

"You keep saying that, but I know you have the money for it."

"I don't have as much as you probably think. Beacon isn't free, you know." I respond, turning to face Sam. "And what I do have, I need to save for the necessities - more knives, dust-infused knives…" I pause, trying to think of other things I need to buy. "... That's pretty much it really. Three quarters of my knives are crappy ones I found in dumpsters, so I'd like to get to the point where all of them are professionally made, and a good third of them have dust in them."

Sam didn't seem to like my answer. "Then why the hell didn't you let me buy you one?!"

I waved him off. "Everything so far that I've needed a scroll for, my phone has been good enough to do."

"But no one can call you." Sam pointed out.

"I'm working on that. With the resources here at Beacon, I should be able to finish my project." I explain.

The project in question was me attempting to strip the OS on my iPhone and replace it with a scroll's OS. I think I'm almost there, but until then, my phone can't do much more than record videos and take pictures. However, I've yet to have a need to actually need to call people, and I don't picture myself needing any other functions of a scroll anytime soon.

"I hope you get that done soon…" Sam muttered, starting to open up his own locker.

I don't respond. Instead, I reach into my locker and pull out two bandoliers, which I then wrap in an 'x' shape across my chest. These bandoliers are filled to the brim with knives, of which most are of exceptionally poor quality. Once those are secured, I reach in and grab my duster. It's a tan brown jacket that reaches to about my calves. I leave it open so that I can easily reach inside and grab one of my knives.

"I still can't believe that you dress like that now." Sam said mockingly. "I remember when you never wore anything other than a hoodie and jeans."

"Hoodie and jeans don't work well in the desert." I responded, grabbing my katana and closing my locker. "Besides, you're one to talk. Your combat gear is basically a walking billboard for Schnee." I clip the katana to my waist underneath my duster.

"Not like I had much of a choice there…" Sam muttered to himself. "Besides, somehow I don't get warm in this stuff, and it's not like I need much flexibility for my clothes."

I nod. "Yeah, fair enough."

We head towards the cliff face, and get ready for the introduction. We wait there for several moments, as people start to filter out of the main building and up to where we are standing. After some time, and no one else coming out, Ozpin decides to speak up.

"For years, you have trained to become warriors. The very best of the best. Today, you will be pitted against the Emerald forest, filled with the very creatures you will train to fight."

"I'm sure many of you are aware that you will be assigned teams. Those teams will be assigned… today."

"What?!" I hear, and I turn around to see Ruby get nervous.

"These teammates will be with you for the rest of your time here at Beacon. They will likely be great friends with you for the rest of your life." He pauses dramatically. "That being said, the first person you lay eyes on is your partner for the rest of your time at Beacon."

Most of the others on the cliff face are shocked by Ozpin's blunt statement, and Sam is somewhat shocked as well. It occurs to me that Sam remembers little of the actual details of the episodes of the show. I probably should have reminded him of how we'd be partnering up, but I'd just assumed that he'd remembered.

He looks at me and his eyes widen in shock. I smile sheepishly and shrug, kind of going 'what can you do?'. His eyes start twitching. He's to my right, so if I remember correctly, that means he's going after me, so all he has to do is simply follow me. I have an idea on how to do that easily. I mouth 'shotgun' to him, and pray that he sees it.

"-will find an abandoned temple containing several relics. Your task is to take one per pair and return to the top of this cliff. Make sure to destroy anything in your path… Or you WILL die." Ozpin warns, his voice suddenly very serious, causing several people to start to get nervous. "Now, are there any questions?"

"Uh, yeah, sir?" I hear Jaune ask. I feel bad for the boy.

"Excellent! Now, take your positions."

We all move onto our assigned launch pad. Sam and I are going to be among the first few to go. That'll be fine for what I have planned. Sam grimaces at what's to come, which makes me think that he probably got my message.

"Uh, sir?" I hear Jaune ask. Some people to my left launch. One after the other, I hear them leave the cliff. "I was just wondering-" And then I was off. I had been launched.

As soon as I reached the apex of my launch, I activated my semblance. I bring my time dilation up to a 5:1 dilation, which I should be able to hold long enough to get to the temple without draining my entire semblance.

As I glide along, not really going down much (due to gravity's effect on my body being decreased), I watch out for the temple underneath me. Eventually I reach it, and I bring my time dilation back to a normal dilation. I grab a crystal of gravity dust from my pocket and crush it in my hand, shoving aura into it as it washes over me, slowing down my momentum. Sam had gave me the crystal for this particular purpose, as well as teaching me how to do it.

I hear something that sounds like rushing wind, and I look up to where the sound is coming from. I see Sam zooming a few meters above me. He appears to be flipping me off.

I wave at him as he disappears into the treeline. I land in the middle of the temple and grab a black Rook piece. I look back at the forest in the direction that Sam had gone in. I hear a few shots, but I don't move to interfere. Sam should be fine.

Sam comes out of the forest glaring at me, his clothes full of twigs and leaves.

"You just HAD to tell me to use the shotgun, didn't you?!" Sam shouted.

I shrug. "Well, it worked, didn't it?"

Sam groaned. "The kickback for it got even more extreme after the upgrades… I guess that's good to know now. I actually drained aura from the kickback."

I blink at him in confusion. "Sam… How many shots did you have to use?" I tentatively asked.

"Only two. I boosted the shots though." Sam explained.

"Um… Wow. You're never using that. Ever."

"Yup. So, we all good?"

"Yeah, grabbed the relic." I said. I stuck a thumb over my shoulder. "We should go before everyone else shows up.

Sam furrowed his eyebrows in thought. "Wait, didn't the other teams fight-"

"Sam, we should go. Don't forget, we're being MONITORED and GRADED, remember?" I said, not-so-subtly reminding Sam that Ozpin and Glynda are watching us, and that we should be careful what we say.

"Oh. Right." Sam said. "Alright, let's get going."

I nod, and we both take off through the forest. We zoom through the trees, desperately trying to avoid fighting much Grimm. While we wouldn't be adverse to fighting any Grimm, I'm still trying to keep my Semblance a secret, so we can't fight too many opponents.

We're probably about halfway back when we run into a pack of Beowulf's. There's roughly ten or so that I can see, though there's probably more hiding in the foliage. The ones that I can see are all arranged directly in front of us.

"Sam, Scorched Earth." I say, grabbing three knives, two in my right, one in my left. The Beowulf's start charging at us at this point.

"Got it." Sam replied, shifting his weapon into sniper rifle form.

I should clarify at this point. To say that Sam was a good shot was like saying that the ocean was wet. We'd actually watched a worldwide marksmanship tournament once. At the end, Sam had turned to me, and claimed he could beat the winner. We tested it with some targets in a wide-open space.

Sam did manage to beat the title-holder, which I argued could be because his aura bullets aren't as affected by wind resistance as normal bullets, but Sam had refused my argument and claimed that he was simply the better shot.

Either way, with that sniper rifle, Sam could hit just about anything, which is why most of our strategies revolve around him hitting my knives in mid-air and enhancing them. That's what we're doing here.

The first knife that I throw is a gravity knife, which is the basis of the entire plan. Because of my Semblance, I can control how quickly dust burns out. While normally the amount of dust in a gravity knife would hardly have much force behind it, because it's burned all at once, the resulting force is far greater. It also allows me to delay the activation a few moments before detonating it remotely. Combined with Sam's Semblance, the force is almost irresistible.

Once the gravity knife is in the middle of the enemy formation, I throw my other two knives and activate the gravity knife. My last two knives are fire and wind, with the fire knife thrown slightly before the wind knife. I probably don't have to explain what's happening here, but I'll do it anyways. The fire knife explodes into a fireball, going straight into the now-compact group of Beowulf's. Afterwards, the wind knife detonates, being absorbed by the fireball and making it larger. With both enhanced by Sam's Semblance, the resulting fireball is quite spectacular.

The resulting explosion of fire engulfs all of the Beowulf's, who are still being held compactly by the initial gravity knife. We held our position for a few moments, making sure that none of the Beowulf's survived the flames. After a few moments, we were fairly certain that none had, but five more had charged at us from the surrounding area. I instantly charge at the larger group of three, trusting that Sam could handle two of them on his own.

I can tell that the initial fall from the cliff barely took up much of my aura reserves, so I still had enough to deal with the threats in front of me. I turned up my time dilation to a 10:1, which should allow me to kill them extremely quickly.

I unsheath my sword and swing widely, cleaving through two of my targets at once. I spin on my heel and look at the third Beowulf, which is still in mid-air, slowly falling towards me. I almost pity it. I bisect it horizontally and sheathe my sword, deactivating my time dilation as I do so.

All of the Beowulf's dissipate into mist in mid-air, the resulting mess spraying over me, causing me to close my eyes and spit out what little gets in my mouth. I spend a few seconds kneeled over and spitting, attempting to get the taste of Grimm out of my mouth.

Once I get up, I notice Sam already standing over me, a teasing grin on his face.

"Not a word." I growl.

Sam says nothing, but his smile says everything. The jerk's happy that I'm suffering. I keep grumbling as we head back. I had been so cool, dammit. I bet Ozpin probably didn't even see my sword move. After all, that was the ultimate goal with my Iaido. Unfortunately, I'm now almost a quarter empty in turns of aura, which isn't a good sign for the future.

"We should get moving. More Grimm might hone in on us." I suggest, wiping my tongue on my sleeve.

"Sounds good. Lead the way." Sam replies.

And so we left. We weren't harassed the rest of our journey, which I decided was a good thing. While it meant that Ozpin and Goodwitch didn't know enough about us to place us with another team, it also meant that they knew very little about our capabilities. Well, mine at least. Sam had won the Atlas fighting tournament last year, so they probably knew a fair bit about how Sam fought.

While it might seem logical to not hide how good I am at fighting from the good guys, I can't afford the possibility that Cinder is somehow watching this year's class. Granted, she would probably be focused on Pyrrha, but I want to fly completely under her radar. I don't want to be noticed, I don't even want to appear on her list of people to kill. I want her to assume that I'm so mediocre that I'll die to the Grimm during the invasion.

I want my appearance to be such a complete and utter surprise that I'll get at least one good clean shot in before she recovers. That's the goal. That's why I'm being so secretive about my potential.

That being said… I still feel like I could be doing more with my Semblance, but I have yet to figure out what that is…

* * *

We were the first back up the cliff, and were told to wait in the auditorium. We watched as students slowly flowed in. Sam and I sat in a corner. I decided to use my time dilation to quicken the flow of time through my body, making the rest of the world from my perspective move by faster.

I'm somewhat impatient.

Sam fiddled around with his scroll. I don't know what he did, but I've got a feeling that he somehow got a video game on there. Lucky.

Eventually, I felt Sam rapidly tap my shoulder, which meant that I needed to come back to normal time dilation.

"-Will be led by Jaune Arc!" Ozpin announces.

Polite applause follows, and a stunned Jaune Arc gets accidentally knocked down by a congratulatory punch from Pyrrha Nikos. I chuckle. It's one thing to see it on a screen, another entirely to see it in real life. Real life is far funnier than the show.

"Blake Belladonna, Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Yang Xiao-Long. The four of you retrieved the white knight pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as Team RWBY, which will be led by Ruby Rose!"

The entire team (except Blake) seems surprised by the announcement. Amidst the applause, Yang tackle-hugs her sister onstage in front of the entire crowd.

God I'm happy I don't have Yang as a sister.

Weiss looks less than happy, and I turn to see how Sam takes it. He's frowning, but nodding nevertheless, apparently agreeing with Ozpin's decision. They get off the stage, and I suppose it's our turn now. I'm interested to see who we get paired up with… All the characters I can remember from the show have already been assigned teams…

"And finally, our last team… James Smith, Sam Scott… For retrieving the black rook pieces, you will be team JS (Joust), which will be led by James Smith!"

Confused and somewhat hesitant applause follows the formation of our team, which is reflected on mine and Sam's faces as we turn to look at Ozpin, who simply sighs in response.

"Unfortunately, the two others who had successfully retrieved the other black rook piece were killed during initiation. Without the full students we were expecting, I am forced to give the other team with the black rook piece their own team." Ozpin explained. "Could we please have a moment of silence to remember the two who were taken away from us too soon."

There were bowed heads around the room. Unfortunately, and I feel like a horrible person for thinking this, but it's the thought that entered my head first:

 _Well, there goes flying unnoticed…_

 **A/N:**

 **Beacon at last… Well, the journey's been interesting this far, hopefully I can keep it going.**

 **Also, to those new to my writing, just know that I've never been a fan of my own fight scenes. If anyone has any suggestions for how I can improve them, let me know. I would really appreciate the help there.**

 **Also, anyone know what to call multiple Beowolf? Because I think it's one thing, and google docs disagrees.**

 **Also, I had absolutely no idea what to name a team whose two initials are J and S. Joust is the best I could come up with.**

 **Finally, here's Sam, who decided that he wanted in on the author's notes. He's been helping me behind the scenes, giving a second opinion on stuff before I upload a chapter.**

 **Sam - Hello, it is I, Sam! I'm glad to be a part of this, helping this writing, and to see how I am perceived in the world of RWBY. My favorite part about this so far is how accurate the relationship between myself and James is depicted.**

 **Review replies:**

 **Akasuna123 - I… Legitimately didn't think of that. Like, at all. The thought hadn't even crossed my mind until you said it. I tried to think of a reason why, and couldn't come up with one. So now it's in. I'm not going to go back and change things, because if I didn't think of it without you asking, it's unlikely that I'd think of it without some kind of a reminder along the lines of 'oh yeah, Ozpin's a good guy'.**

 **Warlord of Chaos - Hopefully you enjoy the interactions here with Sam and Weiss… It's not how they normally interact, but as you probably realized, this wasn't normal circumstances.**

 **Bomberguy789 - The aura regen idea actually did occur to me, and I have a way to use it that isn't completely broken, but that's not coming till later. Also, yeah. I'd actually been talking with Sam about how much of canon he remembered, and… Well, I'll mention it next chapter.**


	4. Weiss Has Issues

Sam awoke to the sound of a whistle blowing. He jolted up immediately. He looked in the direction of the offending noise, but all he saw was a wall. He kicked it lamely a few times, only for another whistle noise to come from it in response, surprising Sam enough to make him fall off the bed mid-kick.

While on the floor upside-down, he looked at the only other occupied bed in the room, which contained his friend and partner, James, who had managed to sleep through the whistle.

Sam shook his head. James was quite possibly one of the deepest sleepers on the face of the planet. Very little could wake James up, which was probably why James still fell asleep in full combat gear. And why he had his Semblance active while sleeping; he didn't need as much time to sleep if he experienced the world several times faster while sleeping.

However, Sam knew of two ways to wake James up. His alarm on his phone, and…

"James, wake up." Sam said.

James blinked the sleep out of his eyes, and then gently rubbed both of them with the palms of his hands. He turned to look at Sam.

"Sam…?" He groaned. "What time is it?"

Sam shrugged. "Seven in the morning. Class starts in two hours."

James blinked a few more times before rolling over. "I can sleep for another hour then."

And that was it. James was out like a light. Sam facepalmed at James' action. Sam had almost forgotten that James could be exceptionally lazy without a push in the right direction.

"James, wake up."

James looked to be rubbing his eyes again, before he turned back over. "Sam? What time is it now?"

"You just went back to sleep. It's still seven in the morning."

James groaned, and started to roll back over.

"Oh no you don't! We agreed to explore the school before class." Sam said, grabbing James' shoulder and forcing him onto his back.

James let out a deep breath and opened his eyes. "I change my mind, we'll do it later."

"Nope. Now. Come ON James." Sam asserted.

James sighed in defeat. "Fine. Let me have a shower first. I need to wake up."

Sam nodded in acceptance. "Alright, I'll decorate my side." He said.

Sam started to set up. He and James had to keep the beds that the school had provided, which meant that there were two beds too many. However, they had already decided what to do with them. Both members of team JS had made bunk beds. Sam because he needed space for his stuff and James because he liked sleeping on the top bunk of the bunk bed. Sam slept on the bottom bunk of one bed, and James slept on the top of the other.

Sam didn't have too many personal items, mostly just a few posters. He had many, many cases of dust though. So many in fact, that he actually had to use both spare mattresses to house his remaining dust.

It probably said something about Jacques' lack of faith in Sam that he gave him so much dust. Sam didn't like Jacques much.

Either way, Sam was done by the time James got out of the bathroom. Sam had showered the night previous, so all he needed to do was change into the uniform.

James was somewhat comfortable with the uniform. Honestly, he cleaned his clothes every other day anyways, so he was used to wearing the same thing. The only problem that he had with the uniform was that they would be somewhat restrictive, and he would definitely be too warm by the end of the day. He loosened his tie so that it wasn't choking him, and then left his blazer unbuttoned. Honestly, it was bad enough that he'd have to tuck in his shirt, he hated that.

Hearing the bathroom door open, James turned to look at his partner… Who had done the same exact thing he'd done.

"Huh. Honestly figured that the Schnee family would have beat 'proper dress' into you by now." James said to his partner.

Sam shook his head. "Nah. They've tried, but it didn't stick."

James raised an eyebrow in questioning. "And Weiss will just accept how you're dressing?"

Sam nodded. "She'll probably be a little frustrated, but she knows that I'm not gonna back down."

James shrugged in nonchalance. "Your funeral. I figured you'd want to get on her good side today…"

Sam's eye twitched, and then he looked down at himself. "You… May have a point."

"Probably. You gonna need more time?" James asked.

Sam shook his head. "No, I just need to grab my hat."

James had started to head towards the door, but froze when he heard the end of Sam's sentence. He turned back to face Sam, a deadpan expression on his face. "Really? You're going to wear your stupid hat with your uniform?"

"It's my hat." Sam said, as if that explained his entire reasoning, which it probably did.

James just shook his head in exasperation. "I'll be waiting outside." He announced.

Sam looked down at his hat a few seconds before securing it on his head. "No one appreciates you but me…" He muttered to the hat.

* * *

Beacon was big. Very big. There's a few basement levels that weren't on the show, what looked like training or combat simulation rooms. Most of the more traditional book-based classrooms were on the top floors, and the dorms were all in the same wing.

We managed to find the cafeteria, and sat down for a quick breakfast at 8:30. Our first classroom was near the cafeteria, so we could take our time getting there. I vaguely remember that team RWBY were late for their first class, so in a way I'm happy that Sam woke me up early. Granted, I'm still upset with him for waking me up as early as he did, but it wasn't quite his fault. I had fallen asleep at 8:00PM the night before and only slept for two and a half hours with my semblance on before I woke up. After that, I had gone out and trained for a bit, then come back in at 6:00AM, and then fell asleep with my Semblance on again, so it felt like I'd gone a full day and then slept for three hours.

I'd told Sam all this and he'd looked a little guilty for a few seconds before he smiled at me in a way that told me he had not forgotten how much mischief I'd had at his expense recently.

I'd get him back for it… When I wasn't so tired.

We soon left for our first class, which was a basic physical exercise class, running laps, lifting weights, etcetera. It was probably meant to help wake us up, but I was way too tired for this crap right now.

Unfortunately for me then, my training partner was Sam, who had been my training partner for a good two years now, and knew what to do when I didn't want to train, which was almost always.

"James, come on! You said you were going to get to four-fifty today!" Sam shouted in encouragement, as I lay down on a bench, the bar for the bench press directly above me, my arms laying lax by my sides.

I glare at Sam. "That was before you gave me three hours of sleep Sam!" I shout back. Sam was currently doing bicep curls, likely each dumbbell weighing more than he does with his sniper rifle. Luckily all weights in this gym were simply metal bars with gravity dust in the middle and screens on each side where you can set the weight. It makes it so that Sam doesn't have to lift ridiculously large dumbbells in order to get a workout.

Sam rolled his eyes. "Suck it up James. The whole point of Beacon is to push your limits to improve, so just… Think of this as one of those limits, alright?"

I sigh. "Alright, alright. I'll do it."

I take a deep breath in, and set my barbell to four hundred and fifty pounds, roughly four times my body weight and still under what a the best melee fighters would use.

I push, and my muscles are immediately on fire. I extend the weight fully above myself, hold it for a few seconds, and then gently bring it back down to rest. I then pull myself off the bench.

"Right, that's enough weights, now it's time to run."

Sam frowned in disapproval. "James, we just started weights! Come on, you need-"

"Can'thearyoumusic'stooloud!" I shout over my shoulder, plugging in my headphones as I run towards the nearby track.

And then I ran for the rest of the lesson.

Sam was not amused.

The next class was dust theory, which was interesting, especially since Sam really knew his stuff when it came to that class, but it was the last class of the day that was more interesting.

On paper, it would be one of our most important classes: Grimm studies. Analyzing the weaknesses of different types of Grimm and how to kill them. However, the teacher, much like in the show, well….

"...Despite smelling of cabbages, my grandfather was a wise man…" Professor Port informed us, obviously using his story as a lesson for… Something…

Forget it, the man had no idea what his lesson plan was anymore. That's the reasoning I've come up with here. I refuse to believe that Ozpin actually hired someone this incompetent and hadn't fired him yet. He had simply forgotten the lesson plan. That was it.

…

…

…

Okay, I was close to dozing off now… Seriously, I don't do this often, and I'd been wide awake ever since the end of the first class today, so it wasn't like I was especially tired or anything…

And then canon decided to reel its ugly head.

"Now, who believes they embody these traits the best?" The professor asked.

 _Uh oh…_ I thought to myself. We had actually been sharing this class with team RWBY and JNPR, but Sam and I had decided to sit near the very back.

"I do sir!" Weiss shouted, standing up with her hand raised.

I turn to give Sam a meaningful glance. He sighs, and nods slightly. He knows that he needs to talk to Weiss as soon as possible. He can probably help her out more than Professor Port can, and maybe mend things without Weiss insulting Ruby.

"I'll talk to her." Sam whispered to me.

I nod in affirmation, and then get back to observing Weiss, who had just noticed that her opponent was a boarbatusk. She quickly dodged to the side, and looked shocked at her new opponent.

She was quickly getting more and more frustrated as Ruby kept trying to give her advice, and at one point it cost her dearly. The Grimm managed to trap Weiss' weapon between its tusks.

"Show it who's boss!" Ruby shouted at her partner.

Weiss turned around, and was about to yell at Ruby, when the Grimm decided to use the distraction to its advantage. It reeled back, sending Weiss' rapier flying and sending Weiss in the other direction.

I hear a intake of breath from Sam's direction, but I didn't look away from Weiss. I didn't remember how this fight had gone, so I was concerned that Port would have to get involved and make the situation between Ruby and Weiss even worse.

I didn't doubt for a second that Weiss was in no danger, I knew that Port was actually a good huntsman, despite the fact that this class had shown he might not be a good teacher. However, I _may_ have forgotten to tell Sam that, so he probably thought that he would have to step in.

Luckily for all involved, Weiss managed to trick the boarbatusk and grab her sword, she then used her runes to deflect its charge, flip it on its back and then skewer it through the stomach.

"Bravo! A wonderful performance by young Ms. Schnee!" Professor Port announced. "It appears that we ARE in the presence of a true huntress-in-training!"

Sam let out a deep breath. Weiss glared angrily at Ruby.

"Sam…" I start.

"I see it…" Sam says, resigned to his fate. "I'll… Make sure she doesn't do anything she'll regret."

I nod in acceptance.

"I believe that's all the time we have here for today! Please go over your assigned readings before the next class!" Professor Port announces.

 _What assigned readings?! We don't have a textbook and he spent the entire class talking about his own stories of being a hunter!_ I furiously thought to myself.

Whatever. I've got to get some training done anyways. I grab my bag and head towards my locker. I want to practice my fighting skills without my Semblance. I've been relying too much on it again, and with my low aura pool, that's a really bad idea. I wave Sam goodbye and head out of the room. He peels off from me and heads after Weiss.

* * *

Sam had been moving through the hallways, trying to find Weiss before Ruby did. He was concerned about her. He knew that Weiss had been upset about not getting the leader position for her team, and he had yet to properly apologize for forgetting to tell Weiss that he would be joining her at Beacon Academy. On top of that, James apparently remembered that Weiss said some pretty hurtful things to Ruby after their first day of classes, and James pointed out that nipping that problem in the bud might be for the best.

However, Weiss had ran off, probably towards her dorm room, but Sam didn't know where their room was, only the general direction that all dorms were in, which meant that he had to guess how Weiss would head back to her room, which involved looking up and down several hallways and moving across several floors.

Finally, he found her. She was storming away from him, so he had to pick up the pace to catch up to her.

"Weiss!" He shouted, catching her attention.

Weiss spun around, and looked like she was about to start shouting, before she realized who had spoken up. Her posture relaxed slightly. "Oh… Sam." She said. "How are you?"

Sam frowned at Weiss' demeanor. "Weiss… I'm sorry for forgetting to tell you that I would be going with you to Beacon… I really messed up there."

Weiss stared at Sam for a few moments. She opened her mouth and brought a hand up as if to make a statement, before her posture slumped and she closed her mouth.

"It's alright Sam… I can't stay angry at you." Weiss said with a sigh.

"Okay, now I KNOW something's wrong. You'd never let me get away with that otherwise." Sam said with a frown. "What's bothering you Weiss?"

Weiss didn't say anything for a few moments. She was weighing telling Sam what was really going on, or just brushing him off. She was still somewhat upset at him for the shenanigans the other day, so she wasn't sure if she wanted to talk with him for too long. However, right now, she was dealing with something pretty big… And having her best friend helping her through it might be for the best.

"I'm… A little upset about not being team leader." Weiss admitted.

Sam snorted. "Yeah, I uh, kind of noticed that."

Weiss glared half-heartedly at Sam. "I… Suppose I was acting… A little bit childish…" Weiss admitted. "I was just so… Frustrated!"

Sam nodded. "But don't you think you're being a little unfair? I talked with Ruby a bit the other day, and she seemed nice."

Weiss shook her head. "That's not the point! I should have been leader! I've studied, I've trained, I've worked so hard…" Weiss choked back a sob. "I… Just wanted to get away… I wanted to prove myself…L-like Winter..."

Weiss collapsed to her knees, covering her eyes with her hands. She was sobbing uncontrollably.

Sam raced to get next to Weiss, hugging her tightly. Weiss was quick to return the hug, sobbing into Sam's chest instead of her own hands.

After a few moments of comforting Weiss, Sam held her shoulders at arms length and "Weiss… It'll be alright, okay? Your dad can't get you here. You don't have to prove anything to him. He's not going to get disappointed in you, he's not going to shout at you, he's not going to tell you what's 'proper'. The people you think you need to prove yourself to know you are strong, the only person who isn't happy about your standards is yourself, alright? Your team knows it, I know it, and all your professors will know it soon. There's nothing for you to worry about!"

Weiss stared into Sam's eyes for a few more moments, and looked like she was about to say something when a sob from behind Sam caught the attention of both students. Turning around, they saw Ruby, who had tears in her eyes, and was covering her mouth with her hands.

"I'm SO sorry! I didn't- I didn't know that- I just- I wanted to see what was wrong with Weiss and then I heard her crying so I wanted to see what was wrong and then I heard you both talking and I just stood there but I didn't mean to listen in but I couldn't move and then…" Ruby kept rambling off apologies, which amused Sam, and only made Weiss seem guilty.

 _Even after I had been so mean to her… She still came over to see what was wrong…_ Weiss thought to herself

Weiss stood up and wiped her eyes, and schooled her expression. She walked towards Ruby, not saying a word as she did so. Once she got within arms length of her partner, she stopped. She took a deep breath and then held out her arm.

"I believe we got off on the wrong foot Ruby… My name is Weiss Schnee." Weiss introduced.

Ruby blinked in confusion, the tears in her eyes still present. She seemed to get it after a moment, and smiled brilliantly. "Hi Weiss! I'm Ruby, Ruby Rose! And I promise to be the best leader you could ever hope for!"

Weiss gave Ruby a small smile. "I suppose… That's all I can really ask for Ruby. I'm… Looking forward to being on your team."

Sam smiled at the interaction between the partners, and decided to get up from the floor. "Well, I'll leave you two to yourselves. I'll catch you later." Sam said, waving goodbye at the two.

"Sam!" Weiss shouted, catching Sam's attention. "Thank you… For today. We should meet up again sometime."

Sam nodded with a grin that almost split his face. "Definitely. I'll try to have lunch with your team. I'll catch you around."

And with that, Sam headed back to his room, leaving the two girls by themselves.

"Soooo… How do you know Sam?" Ruby asked, genuinely curious.

Weiss seemed to be considering the answer to Ruby's question. "One of the servants at my father's mansion found him sleeping out in the snow one night… During a snowstorm. They brought him in, and he'd been cared for by my family ever since." Weiss explained. She hesitated for a brief second, trying to come up with the words for her next statement. She would never be this forthcoming with information for anyone but Sam and Winter, but Ruby was going to be her partner and leader for the next four years, so she needed to trust her.

"I was six when that happened, and I had never really had any friends before then… Sam was my first friend and he's still my best friend even now… Which is why I was really mad that he forgot to tell me that he'd been accepted a year early to Beacon…" She huffed in frustration.

Ruby giggled. "Wow! You're so lucky! You guys must be super close!"

Weiss nodded. "Yeah…" Her voice held something that Ruby couldn't determine, but Weiss seemed to shake it off. "Anyways, if you're going to be partners, you need to try harder in class!" She said, dramatically pointing a finger at Ruby. "So we need to get to the library to study!"

Ruby groaned. "Do we HAVE to? Couldn't we just, I don't know, spar a bunch?"

Weiss shook her head. "No! You need to be better prepared! Let's go!" Weiss said, dragging Ruby by her hood towards the direction of the library.

Ruby put up her arms in a falsely cheerful manner.

"Yay… Teamwork. Woo." She said dryly, already regretting agreeing to be the best leader.

* * *

The next day had actually had more interesting classes than the day prior. Our first class was exactly the same, but the class after that was aura theory, which was… An interesting experience for me, to say the least.

Apparently, when a child unlocks their aura before puberty, but their physical capabilities tend to be better than average and their Semblance tends to become easier to use, but reduces their overall aura capacity. This is what I noticed happening to me a few years ago, and apparently the reason is because the aura notices what changes the body is going through and enhances them, but because those changes are permanent rather than temporary like how aura is usually used, the aura gets trapped inside of a person's body, being constantly used in the upkeep of the changes that it helped enhance during puberty. In order to compensate for the drastic decrease in aura, the Semblance adapts in the same manner, improving because it realizes the rest of the body is improving, reducing aura usage as well as other possible benefits.

The reason why most people waited until after puberty started before unlocking their child's aura is because parents tend to be more concerned with their children surviving rather than making them hit harder. I got lucky that my Semblance can be used in a defensive nature, but with most people, Semblances are crapshoots. No one knows what their Semblance is going to be. While very few are useless, there is no guarantee that it will actually help you much in a fight. Parents would rather take the guaranteed chance with a higher aura capacity rather than risk their child's safety with a Semblance that they don't know anything about.

However, I was more interested in methods to improve one's aura capacity, so I tried to look into that in between that class and the next, using the provided text that the teacher had provided (because this professor actually remembered to hand those out).

I started with ways to use my aura more efficiently, because I figured that would accomplish the same thing, but probably help me get results faster.

As Sam and I were walking down the hallway towards our last class of the day, I froze. It took me a few moments to realize the ramifications of a passage that I'd just read. I re-read it, just to make sure I understood. Then I read it again, just in case.

"James?" Sam asked, sounding concerned. "Is everything alright?"

I close my book quickly, making a 'whap' noise as I did so. I stare blankly forwards, before quickly hitting myself in the face with the textbook. And then again, and again and… you get the idea.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid!" I mutter to myself.

Sam grabs the book. "James, stop! You're wasting aura!" He says.

I glare lightly at Sam, who only smirks in response. He decides to ask the question that was on his mind.

"So, what made you an idiot?" Sam asked, and then flinched, almost immediately regretting it.

I shrugged in response, "Most things, but in particular, something that I should have realized a while ago…" I sighed. "The idea of focusing my aura on a specific point. Right now, whenever I use my Semblance, I have to infuse my entire body with my aura, when I really don't need to do that."

"Really? How does that work? I figured that you would need all of your body at the same speed, right?" Sam asked, intrigued and confused by my words.

I shook my head. "No, in theory, if I use less aura and focus it on my head, I should be able to achieve a greater time dilation for the same amount of aura I use right now passively." I explain. "That should increase my reaction speed by a great amount, and from there I can change the time dilation about the rest of my body as needed."

Sam took a few moments to process what James just said. "Sooo…. What does that mean for you?"

"Potentially, it should increase my reaction times to crazy high levels, and also decrease the amount of aura I use during combat situations, since I won't need my entire body covered in aura the entire time I'm fighting. I don't know how much it'll improve my reaction times, but the important thing is that I'll use less aura in general."

Sam nodded. "Yeah, you run out of aura pretty quickly…" He mused. "But how long is this going to take you? I mean, it's not like it's just a thing you can master immediately, right?"

I nod. Sam's right, but I have absolutely no idea how long it could take me. It's not like the book says how long it should take someone to go from coating their entire body in aura to only targeting specific parts of my body.

"Not sure. Probably a while though. I'm gonna start now." I say, spinning on my foot and walking off.

"Wait, James!" Sam shouts "We're supposed to have lunch with the others!"

I wave over my shoulder. I needed to train. Besides, I'm garbage at making friends, and those people aren't my friends yet. I'd just be imposing on them, and I don't really want to do that.

* * *

Ruby was enjoying having lunch with her team and team JNPR. They were all really cool! Well, she hadn't really talked to most of team JNPR, and she didn't know much about Blake yet, but she was sure that they were awesome! Nora was really funny, Pyrrha was really nice, and Ren… Hadn't said anything yet, but Nora really seemed to like him, so he must be nice as well.

"Hey, mind if I sit here?" A voice came from Ruby's left, catching the attention of everyone at the table. Standing at the end of the table, tray of food in hand, was Sam.

"Sam!" Weiss exclaimed, standing up to greet him. She looked at the two spots beside her, and saw that they were both taken by Blake on her left and Jaune on her right. Weiss shoved Jaune to the side, taking the leader of team JNPR by surprise, toppling him off of the side of the table.

"You can sit here!" She offered, not even bothering to look at Jaune, who was still rolling across the floor, having been thrown with enough force to make him keep going.

Everyone else at the table simply stared at Weiss. Weiss, the heiress that didn't really get along with anyone, that always seemed to be arguing with everyone around her, was being far more enthusiastic than normal.

When Jaune finally stopped rolling, and shook off the dizziness, he turned a hurt expression to Weiss, and glared at Sam, who could only give Jaune a sheepish smile while shrugging at him.

Sam took the seat next to Weiss and moved Jaune's tray to an empty spot. "Thanks for letting me sit here guys. I'm Sam, I've been friends with Weiss for a long time." He introduced himself.

Ruby pointed at Sam, having finally figured out who he was. "You're that guy with the mask from the first night!" She exclaimed.

"Ohhhhh" Yang responded, having caught on to Ruby's line of thought. "So THAT'S why you looked so familiar."

Weiss grit her teeth together and her eye twitched in anger at Sam's ploy the first night. Sam merely chuckled. "Yeah… I forgot to tell Weiss that I'd got into Beacon a year early… So she thought that I just didn't say goodbye to her before I left… I felt REALLY bad about that, by the way, but it's all good now." He explained.

Weiss huffed. "I'll get you back for that, just you wait!" She responded.

"Oh, it's alright Weiss!" Sam said with a nervous chuckle. "You already taught me my lesson! No need for anything else!" Sam added, shaking his head and waving his hands in an exaggerated motion, hoping that Weiss wasn't still feeling vengeful.

Weiss simply smirked at her best friend. "Oh, I don't know…" She started. "I certainly don't think you've learned enough. I'll have to think of something…"

She then noticed that the rest of the table was staring incredulously at the two, especially her partner Ruby.

"WHAT?!" Weiss exclaimed.

Everyone else immediately pretended to either eat their food or talk to someone else. Ruby however, had her mind elsewhere. She knew that Weiss and Sam were best friends since, well, forever, but she didn't think that Weiss would be so DIFFERENT. Was this the real Weiss? Was all that mean talk and stuff just fake? If so, Ruby resolved that she'd be a person Weiss could act like this around. She'd make it one of her missions as her leader!

"Sam, didn't you have a partner? I believe his name was James?" Pyrrha asked, gathering the attention of the rest of the table.

Yang latched onto that line of conversation. "Oh yeah, we met him the first night too! You guys were that two-person squad right? Where is he?"

Sam groaned. "Yeah, James is my partner, and yes, we were put on the two-person squad…" He affirmed. "Unfortunately, James isn't great with meeting new people, so he's training right now."

Nora gasped. "He's not eating?! C'mon Ren! We've got a food emergency!" Nora shouted, pulling Ren up with her while she stood from her seat.

"I wouldn't bother if I were you." Sam said, taking a bite from his sandwich. "I explored Beacon with James right before our first day of classes. There's so many training areas, it'd take you hours before you'd find him, and by then it'd be time for class."

Nora seemed to deflate at that. She sat back down, allowing Ren to sit as well, who decided to let out a deep breath of relief at his partner's actions. "B-but… Food! He can't just… Not eat, can he?!"

Sam smiled awkwardly. "I've been training with James for the better part of two years now. Sometimes, he just doesn't eat a meal. No real reason behind it, I don't think he forgets or anything, he just… Doesn't. I'm still not clear why."

"So James was your training partner?" Weiss asked. "You never introduced us." She sounded somewhat hurt at that statement.

Sam shrugged. "Never saw the point. I'm happy though. We make a good team, and he's a good friend."

"But you will introduce us, right?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah, sure. Next chance I get, I'll try to introduce him to you." He promised. "Not sure how much he would say, but I'll make sure he shows up."

"Yeah! Bring him to lunch sometime!" Nora shouted. "We need to make sure he eats!"

Sam chuckled. "I'll uh, bring him with me next lunch then, how's that sound?"

Nora nodded her approval, seemingly appeased by Sam's words, which relieved Ren. Nora was getting a little bit too excited, and that never meant anything good for those around her.

"So Sam, how long have you known ice queen?" Jaune asked.

Sam's eyebrows raise. "'Ice queen'? You call her 'ice queen'?" He asked incredulously.

Jaune, confused, merely nodded. "Seriously? Personally, I think Winter's more of a 'queen' and Weiss is more of a 'princess', but you know, whatever." Sam mused.

"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?!" Weiss asked indignantly.

"Oh! Uh, well, you see, Winter's older, so she'd be the queen, right? Besides, 'ice princess' sounds more like you, right? 'Ice queen' sounds like someone that doesn't really care about anyone else, and you're not usually like that." Sam said.

Blake arched an eyebrow at Sam's statement. "Are we talking about the same person here?" Blake muttered to Yang, who chuckled in response.

Weiss' cheeks colored pink at Sam's compliment. "Fine. I suppose that makes more sense." She muttered. Then she shoved a pointed finger into Sam's face. "But don't you dare call me that, alright?!"

"Uh, yeah, sure thing Weiss!" Sam said, staring straight at the finger pointed at him.

Yang and Blake shared glances at this, but it was Ruby that voiced all of their thoughts.

"Okay, is Weiss acting really weird, or is it just me?" She whispered to the other two members of her team.

"It's not just you." Blake responded. "This is really bizarre…"

"I don't know how to respond to this, so I'm just going to not." Yang said, going back to her food. "We'll talk to her about it when we get back to our room."

The three members of team RWBY agreed to that, and decided to spend the rest of the lunch period observing the antics between their final member and Sam. While not drastically different, it was still nicer than Weiss had been with any of them. However, team JNPR were just trying to be welcoming to the newcomer. Sam turned out to be a pretty funny guy, so he fit in just fine with everyone else.

They all shared small talk until it was time for the lunch period was over. While Ruby really wanted to know more about Weiss and Sam, she had to go to class with her team now. She'd have to ask later, after the day was over. Weiss was her partner, and Ruby wanted to understand her as much as possible, and she was sure that talking about Sam with her would help. After all, Weiss did say that they'd been friends since they were kids, right? Then that meant that Sam was really important to Weiss, so Ruby should get to know how important.

Their next class taught aura manipulation, but unfortunately Ruby was distracted. She'd been wondering whether to join her sister and Blake in their talk with Weiss later tonight, or to try to find Sam and talk to him about Weiss.

It didn't help that they shared that class with Sam's team. She could see Sam in the back, talking to James, who she realized she had actually met the first night, when he showed up and revealed Sam's presence to Weiss. She'd have to wait and see what he was like when Sam introduced him some other time.

At the end of class, which Ruby had barely managed to catch up with, since she spent the first half hour or so debating with herself about whether or not she was going to chase down Sam. However, that choice was taken from her when Sam left with his partner, seemingly frustrated by something. Ruby didn't really want to intrude, since it seemed like they had to talk about something, so she didn't bother them. That meant that she'd be talking to Weiss about it with the rest of her team, which was fine.

The four walked back to their dorm in silence. Three of them wanted to talk to Weiss, but wanted to wait until they got back to their room. Weiss on the other hand…

"Why are you all so quiet?" She asked.

Ruby chuckled nervously. "Well, um… I guess we just uh…" She trailed off, not sure what to say. "Guys, help?" She asked, desperately turning to the other two.

Blake shrugged. "We want to talk about something, but we can't talk about it out here." She explained.

Ruby let out a breath of release as Weiss arched an eyebrow. "Okaaay… Well, let's get back then." Weiss responded.

When they did finally get to their room, they all sat on the two opposite beds. Weiss finally decided to voice her question.

"So what did we need to talk about?" She asked.

"Well Weiss." Yang started, a mischievous smile spread across her lips. "Why didn't you tell us you had a boyfriend?!"

"What?!" Ruby and Weiss both shouted.

"What are you talking about!" Weiss demanded.

"Oh you know, your boyfriend that you introduced to us today?" Yang teased. "Jeez Weiss, I knew you probably were distracted, but we were still at the table you know!"

"Sam is not my boyfriend!" Weiss countered, having realized what Yang was talking about. "I don't know WHY you thought he was!"

"Well…" Blake started. "After he showed up, you didn't even look at anyone else…" She mused. "You were more focused on him."

Ruby seemed to catch on to what they were saying. "Oh yeah! And he helped you out yesterday, plus you were acting really weird today after he showed up!"

Weiss' cheeks flushed in embarrassment. "I-It's not- I don't…" She took a deep breath in an attempt to calm down. "Look." Weiss started. "I've been friends with Sam for… A very, very long time. He knows me better than anyone. Better than my mother, better than my sister… And especially better than my father." She explained.

"Sam's always known how to help me when I needed it, so I'm… A bit more lenient with him than I normally am with people, alright?"

"That still doesn't explain why you were so focused on him though." Blake said, not letting it go. "So what's going on Weiss?"

Weiss looked at her hands for a few moments, before she glared up at the rest of her team. "This doesn't leave the room, GOT IT? Not to any professors, not to team JNPR, and ESPECIALLY not to Sam!"

The rest of her team, seeing how serious she was, all immediately agreed, and gave her nods in response.

"Sam's… Not just my best friend" Yang perked up at that. "No, not like that Yang!" She shouted, causing Yang to pout. "Sam is the only friend I've ever really had. He wasn't some son or daughter of someone important I was supposed to like, he wasn't some tutor trying to be nice to me for a pay raise, he wasn't a servant nervous about upsetting me because they'd be fired, he was just… Sam. My friend." She paused, trying to compose her thoughts. "... But Sam went to school outside of the mansion. He made friends, and he spent time with them. I… Started to feel like he didn't care about me anymore. When he found out about that…" Weiss smiled. "Well, he made sure I knew that that wasn't the case." Her smile then turned back to a frown. "But now… We're not partners, we're not even on the same team! I just- I don't want him to leave me! He's my oldest friend, and I just don't- I don't want him to leave me!" Weiss said, starting to freak out a bit.

Ruby immediately hugged Weiss, and the others quickly joined in. After a few moments, Yang decided to speak.

"Weiss, I'm sorry for teasing you…" She started. "But, if it makes you feel better, I don't think Sam's gonna forget about you."

Weiss stared at Yang with wide eyes. "H-how can you tell?"

Yang shrugged. "Well, the guy said that he met his partner two years ago, right?" Weiss nodded. "Well, he still left the guy to sit with you for lunch, so he obviously wants to hang out with you more."

Weiss stared at Yang for a few moments, before she giggled somewhat hysterically. "I can't believe I didn't think of that!" She exclaimed. "I was just- I was just worried about nothing!" She started to laugh at her own ridiculousness, and the others soon joined in.

Ruby smiled. It seemed like Weiss had her own issues to sort out with Sam, but for the moment, she could rest those to the side. Still, it was good to hear Weiss vent like that, since Ruby got a better idea of what Weiss' life was like. And from the looks of it, Sam had played a big role in it. That only further increased Ruby's resolve to become friends with him and his partner, because that would make Weiss very, very happy. And tomorrow was the first step, where Sam would bring his partner and they would get to see what he was like!

* * *

"Hey, I'm gonna go get some training done before class." I told Sam.

However, before I could head in the direction of the training areas, Sam grabbed me by the shoulder. "Ohhh no you don't." He said. "WE are going to LUNCH." And then he started pulling me towards the cafeteria.

I roll my eyes. "Sam, I told you yesterday, I don't normally eat lunch most days, so I'm not used to eating it. I'm not hungry right now."

Sam shook his head. "Nope. You're going with me. You're going to have a proper diet, and you're going to like it! Besides, I promised the others that I'd introduce you."

"'The others'? You mean teams RWBY and JNPR? Sam, I already told you that I'll meet new people at my own pace!"

"Yeah, well, if that pace was above zero friends per month, then maybe I'd actually believe you." Sam said dryly. "C'mon! It'll be good for you!"

I shake my head. "Sam, have you actually seen my trying to meet new people?"

"Yeah, I'm sure I have! You know, when you met, um…" He trailed off. "I can't remember one off the top of my head, but I'm sure I did! You made loads of friends first year!"

"Yeah, and none in second year. But that's not the point. Have you seen my try to talk to new people in the last two years? Because I guarantee you I'm waaaaay worse now." I explained.

"Alright fine. You may not be great, but there's always time for improvement! These guys are great, you gotta do it for them. Besides, you already met a few of them!"

I was about to argue when Sam decided to try to convince me even further.

"James, come ON! Just give it a try, alright? I promise, I won't force you to do this again if it doesn't go well, but you need to at least try it once." He said, crossing his arms.

I sigh. "You promise?"

He shrugged. "Yeah, sure. I'm not expecting sunshine and rainbows, but you have to stay until lunch is done."

"Fine. Let's go." I say, already dreading this lunch break.

It's not like I hate the idea of becoming friends with the cast of RWBY, far from it, I would be thrilled. But I don't think I can. I just don't think that I'm interesting enough for them to want to be friends with me. I mean, they're freaking awesome, and I'm just… James.

But Sam wanted me to meet them, so I'll meet them. I just don't think it'll go as well as he thinks it will.

 **A/N:**

 **So, this chapter was a bit short, but this one and the next one or two are mostly just meant to build up the characters that I'm using, and their relationships. Sam and my character will feature prominently in these, simply because the whole goal of this chapter is to give an insight on these two characters' personality and how they interact with the rest of the world. I'm keeping the team name to joust by the way. It's the one I like the most so far.**

 **I was initially going to include the next scene in this chapter, but once I started writing that, I realized that I wouldn't have a good stopping point for a while after that, so I ended the chapter here. Shortest yet, but hopefully you guys won't be too upset about that.**

 **Also, Sam is getting a lot of screen time this chapter. There's a lot of reasons behind this, but the main one is that he's here to help create/introduce new Weiss, one that had a friend growing up. Speaking of which, I'm not sure how I feel about Weiss' two breakdown scenes. I know Weiss is a strong character. I know that she doesn't cry much. However, these were both moments when I feel like it was justified for her to just have a mental breakdown. She's far from everything she's ever known, leaving just about everything behind to try to get away from her jerk of a father, and she's told (or at least in her mind) that she's not even good enough to beat out Ruby as team leader, someone that she doesn't believe is qualified for the position. On top of that, she wants to prove to herself that she's strong enough to stand on her own, and when she found out she wasn't going to be the leader, she thought that she wouldn't get that chance.**

 **Anyways, I rambled longer than I expected. Here's Sam's author note:**

 **Sam: Hey all! With another chapter, I seem to be helping more and more with some of the writing. It's quite fun, I've never really written a lot for something like this before.**

 **Review responses:**

 **Bomberguy - As far as letting Ozpin know future knowledge anonymously, it's probably not as complicated as you'd imagine, but I'm not gonna spoil it.**

 **merendinoemiliano - Well, hope you like what I did instead of the normal Weiss and Ruby scene in this chapter.**

 **Guest - Yeah, avoiding mary-sue syndrome is what I constantly have to fight, especially with the Semblance that I chose for myself. As far as the whole 'getting in over their heads' thing… At the point in time my character's from, I'd only watched up to season four, and Sam has watched… Less than that. It'll come up later.**

 **Suffice to say, we don't quite know how things really go down.**

 **Anonymous - Reversing time is possible with my Semblance. My character doesn't have a full grasp on how it works just yet. Healing other people would be tricky though. Healing himself… Not so much.**

 **Harbinger the Reaper - Nice to know that you like it! I've been doing my best to make it enjoyable. I'm really trying to prevent the disaster that you alluded to. Hopefully I can continue to do so, but this is only my second multi-chapter story, so please forgive me if there's some bumps along the way.**

 **Now, regarding the decision for a 2-man team… Really, I just didn't want more OC's. I'm fine with OC's in stories, but I hate it when there's too many. Honestly, more than one is stretching it sometimes when I read, so I think I might be pushing it here. Ozpin does have some reasoning behind us being the two-person team though… And it's only partly because of our quick success in retrieving the relic.**

 **Anyways, thank you all for reading, and happy holidays!**


	5. Didn't Even Last the Week, Really

After that discussion, Sam brought me to his table with the other two teams. I was still somewhat uncomfortable, but that was pretty normal whenever I was invited to talk to people that I don't know. This group in question didn't seem to be noticing our approach. They seemed to be deep in some kind of conversation.

"Hey guys!" Sam said, catching their attention.

"Hey Sam!" Ruby responded. "Hi James! Nice to meet you again!"

I smiled. "Same here. How are you Ruby?"

"Oh, I'm great! Classes are so fun so far! Well, except for professor Port, but I'm kinda hoping that's a one-time thing." Ruby replied.

Sam took a seat next to Weiss, who stood up and offered a hand. "I'm Weiss Schnee. Pleased to finally meet Sam's training partner."

I give her a nod in response and shake the offered hand. "Likewise. I've been wanting to talk to you anyways. I just wanted to offer my sympathy."

Weiss looked confused. "Sympathy? For what?"

I thumbed in Sam's direction. "Well, for putting up with that idiot all the time. If I'm being honest, I don't know how you do it."

That got Weiss and a lot of the table to laugh. Sam merely pouted. "Hey, come on! I'm not that bad!"

I rolled my eyes. "Sam, at the tournament before I met you, you almost disqualified yourself because you didn't know how powerful your shotguns' recoil was."

"That was one time!"

"Then later on in that same tournament, you lost because you threw a dust crystal at your opponent without activating it with aura."

"I was tired!"

"And when we started sparring, you-"

Sam started chuckling nervously. "Alright, we get the point!" He said cutting me off. "No need to say anymore."

Weiss only smirked. "Oh, I don't know, I think he should keep going."

"Nonono!" Sam responded. "That's enough of that!"

I smiled at Sam, deciding to throw him a bone. I turn to face team JNPR, who I hadn't met yet.

"Hi, I'm James Smith. Nice to meet you." I say, nodding my head in greeting.

What I wasn't expecting, was for Nora to grab me by the arm and pull me down onto a seat in between her and Ruby. She then shoved a plate piled with pancakes in front of me. I look at her questioningly, only to see a manic grin greeting me in response.

"Sam said you didn't eat lunch yesterday." Her grin only seemed to widen. "That's not okay! You're eating today!"

I look around at the rest of team JNPR, searching their expressions for a way out of this situation. I absently noted that Nora's plate was even more full of pancakes than my own, forming a pile probably a foot high at least. I met Ren's eyes, and he merely shook his head, as if to say that there was no way I could get out of this.

"Erm… Thanks…" I respond, barely catching myself from saying Nora's name. I hadn't been introduced to them yet. While I might be able to get away with it, better to be safe than sorry.

Ren decided to cut me a break. "Pleased to meet you James. My name is Ren, and my friend here is Nora."

That actually reminded me that I've met the two of them before. I… Had actually forgotten until just now. I snap my finger in realization. "I thought I'd recognized you two! I met you back in Mistral years ago. You gave me some advice on acrobatics, if I remember."

Ren tilted his head in confusion. "That sounds… Vaguely familiar. I'm sorry, but I don't quite remember you."

I waved him off. "It's fine. It was years ago, and I only remembered you because of your hair colors. They're… Unique."

Ren nodded in response, happy that James forgave him for not remembering their previous encounter. The other members of JNPR decided to introduce themselves as well.

"Nice to meet you James. The name's Jaune Arc." Jaune introduced himself.

I then turned to the last member of the group. This was my first chance to come face-to-face with Pyrrha Nikos, and the only thing that was going through my head was that if I failed, she died. Her fate was one of the main things that I was trying to change.

"Hello! I'm Pyrrha. Nice to meet you!" The 'invincible girl' greeted.

I nod my head respectfully at her. "Nice to meet you all." I reply, though my gaze flickers briefly back to Pyrrha. I couldn't help it. It was one thing to think about saving someone you'd never met, it was another to come face-to-face with the person in question knowing that if you didn't do a good enough job, they would end up dead. It didn't help that I quite liked Pyrrha in the show, and was pretty devastated when she'd died.

However, I did my best to school my features and not let my worries show on my face. While I could probably come up with something, I didn't want to meet new people only to have to lie to them as soon as I met them. I started working on the… Pile of pancakes that Nora had arranged for me. Which meant applying liberal amounts of syrup to the pile in front of me. Far more than most would consider reasonable.

… What? I'm Canadian. Don't judge.

"So James, how did you meet Sam?" Weiss asked, after she got over the momentary disgust at the amount of syrup I was using.

I swallowed the mouthful I had before answering her. "Well, I met him after the second round of his first tournament. We kind of bumped into each other on accident, and from there we started talking. Didn't take long for us to become friends. After he realized how garbage I was at fighting, he volunteered to help train me."

Sam looked like he wanted to protest, but before he could, Weiss decided to speak up. "That was very kind of you Sam." She said.

I gave Sam my best look to tell him not to fight the idea that I was garbage. The story… Wasn't entirely false, but it wasn't the complete truth. Yes, when it came to general training suggestions, Sam was invaluable, mostly because he agreed to be my sparring partner, and finally managed to get me membership at a place where I could regularly spar against people without my Semblance. However, I did and still can completely trounce Sam when I use my Semblance. And when I told Sam how much I practiced with my Semblance, he gawked. Apparently people don't actually train with their Semblance whenever they can, usually because there are very few Semblances that synergize well with daily life like mine.

So, Sam eventually managed to convince me that I wasn't complete garbage… The amount of effort I'd put into my Semblance was above and beyond the average, maybe even more than someone like Weiss, who practically relied on her Semblance to fight. However, he did reluctantly agree with me that my swordplay could use work, but even then he pointed out that I still had some good points there.

Irregardless, Sam's first reaction whenever I'm harsh on myself is to try to convince me that I'm not the worthless piece of trash that I am. I don't necessarily always agree with him, but I'm not going to voice that out loud. I don't think he necessarily means it, he's just being a good friend and general nice guy. That's why right now, he really wants to tell me that I wasn't worthless, but I need him to agree with me right now because we still need to convince people to underestimate me, and the best kept secrets are the ones no one knows… The fact Sam knows is unavoidable, but I don't want to let anyone else onto the secret until it's time for it to no longer be secret.

Sam chuckled nervously. "Heh, yeah I guess. He seemed like a pretty nice guy, so I figured I'd give him some pointers, and then when we hung out again, he asked me for some more, and it kind of just went from there."

I heard a sharp noise from one end of the table and saw that it was Pyrrha snapping her finger. "That's where I knew you from! You've won the last Atlas youth tournament!"

Sam sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. "Heh. Yeah, but this was my second tournament… The first one… Didn't end well."

Weiss snorted, remembering the moment in question. It was the one that I'd mentioned. Sam had managed to beat Cardin Winchester at the tournament where I'd met him, but in the final round, he tried chucking a crystal of gravity dust to push his enemy away, but forgot to infuse his aura into the crystal (Which I'm honestly still baffled by. He was raised by the Schnee family, how on Earth did he manage to forget to infuse aura into dust?) which allowed his opponent to press his advantage, and Sam couldn't recover.

Of course when the next tournament came around, I made sure that Sam trained until he couldn't move so that he would win the next tournament, which he did. I liked to think that it was because of my contributions that he won, but it probably wasn't.

"Aren't you here a year early then?" Pyrrha questioned.

Ruby's head whipped to gaze at Sam so fast I was afraid that she'd gotten whiplash. Her eyes showed that she was obviously hoping that Pyrrha was correct.

Sam nodded his head. "Yeah, I am. Weiss' dad wanted me here to look out for her."

Weiss huffed in frustration. She of course didn't like that, but didn't really want to talk about how her dad didn't like her chosen profession or how little faith he had in her abilities right now. She was enjoying her lunch, and the less she talked about her father, the longer it stayed that way.

"You're here early too?!" Ruby asked, excited that she wasn't alone in that.

"Yep. Mister Schnee used his connections to get me in." Sam shrugged. "Not how I'd like to get into Beacon, but he wanted me to go, so I didn't really have much of a say in the matter. I'm his ward, so… Yeah."

They talked about the Schnee family for a while, as I silently observed them while polishing off my plate. I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was another fifteen minutes before class started by the time I'd finished my food. I looked back at the rest of the group. No one else had talked to me since I introduced myself, which I kind of expected. It wasn't really their fault though, I just… Didn't know what to say. I quietly grabbed my tray and got up, heading to the drop-off area and then heading to my next class.

I thought that no one would notice my departure, but I didn't realize that Ruby had seen me leave.

* * *

Ruby watched James leave the table and frowned. She had honestly almost forgotten the guy was even there. After that whole starting bit, he'd been super quiet, and hadn't said a word. They'd talked a bit about the Schnee family, which was mostly Blake getting kind of mad and Weiss barely even trying to argue with her. Then that had gone into talk about faunus rights and the White Fang, and they were still talking about that. Ruby was honestly only half paying attention to the discussion about the White Fang herself. As far as Ruby was aware, faunus were just normal people with cool animal powers. Why was that so hard to understand?

"Uh, guys?" Ruby said, interrupting Weiss' long tirade on how the White Fang have tried to attack her family multiple times.

She was successful in grabbing everyone's attention. She pointed in the direction of the door. "James just left."

The attention was then focused on where James had been sitting previously, and then the door, but James had already gone towards his next class and wasn't in the cafeteria anymore.

"That was a bit rude of him…" Weiss muttered.

Sam sighed and shook his head. "No, he just didn't want to interrupt us. That's how James thinks." He stared at the doorway.

"He didn't say anything." Yang said. "I kinda feel bad, but I totally forgot about him."

Sam frowned in thought. "I'll see if I can convince him to come back here again, but I kind of promised him that I wouldn't." Sam explained. "He kinda guessed that this wouldn't go too great."

Blake frowned. "Why would you think that?"

Sam shrugged. "James isn't great at meeting new people. If we hadn't just clicked as well as we had, I don't know if we would have become friends."

Everyone seemed to mull over the information for a few moments before Sam reiterated that they shouldn't worry about it, and that he'd talk to his partner about trying to eat lunch with them again.

Ruby however, still felt guilty. She was sitting right next to James, and she should have noticed that he wasn't really saying much. However, what really got her was that if she had been on a team with only Yang, she could totally see herself in James' shoes. She wouldn't like being dragged to hang out with Yang's friends… But because of Yang and her team, she had made a ton of new friends, but James didn't have that. If Sam didn't convince James, Ruby resolved that she'd do something about it.

The final class of that day we just happened to share with teams RWBY and JNPR, and I could tell that Sam wanted to convince me to go back to his lunch table tomorrow, but wasn't sure how to do that without breaking his promise to me that he wouldn't pester me anymore.

There were two possible outcomes. One: Sam argues that, because I didn't join the conversation during lunch, I didn't meet his requirement to 'actually try', although I only really agreed to stay at the table for all of lunch time, so I technically never violated an agreement that was never made. Two: Sam decides that my making friends is more important than a promise he made, and pesters me about it anyways.

It was truly unfortunate that we were in Professor Goodwitch's sparring class then, because today everyone was going to spar against their partner for the class. After all, most partners have never met before this week, so Goodwitch wanted to give us a little bit of time to adjust to our partner's fighting style.

However, for me that meant that Sam would get the entire lesson to bother me about giving the others another try. Odds were good that we'd be arguing about it for a while. We took our stances at one of the smaller sparring rings that Glynda had set up for today. I had decided to forgo my knives today. Sam and I were going to be doing a more unique version of sparring than most other people do.

"James, I know today didn't go fantastic, but-" Sam started.

"Today went exactly how I imagined it would go. Don't worry about it Sam." I replied, cutting off Sam in the vain hope that he might not continue if I tried to show that I didn't want to talk about it.

"So you'll come back to the table tomorrow then?" Well, I tried at least.

I hear the professor blow a whistle to signify the start of the sparring matches. While Sam still had yet to grab his weapon from behind him, I had my sword strapped to my waist. I grabbed the hilt of my sword and raised an eyebrow at my sole friend.

"Are we actually going to spar today? Y'know, so that Goodwitch doesn't yell at us?" I ask.

Sam flushes pink slightly in embarrassment. "Sorry." He muttered, grabbing his shotgun and shifting it into sniper form.

He starts to take aim and I lower my stance, putting my other hand on the hilt of my still-sheathed sword. Sam and I had figured out that all-out spars between the two of us were pretty useless early on. If I didn't use my Semblance, it was a good experience for me, but not Sam, because I was adapting to fighting opponents without my Semblance, but I wasn't enough of a challenge for Sam, who was used to fighting the best of his age at tournaments. But if I did use my Semblance, it wasn't even fair for Sam. I could close the distance in an instant, which Sam couldn't really do much against because of his lack of melee weapons. We still had those spars from time to time, just… Not very often.

So we devised a new form of sparring. Sam prided himself in his accuracy, whereas I prided myself in my reflexes. I was pretty sure that even without my Semblance I could stand with the best reflex-wise. With those in mind, our new fashion of sparring was simple: Sam would try and shoot at me, and I would attempt to deflect the bullets. Me keeping my sword sheathed is a recent addition, and the two of us are trying to see if I'm ready for that step up. I had been winning much more frequently than Sam so that was why we wanted to give this a try.

We got off to a rocky start, but that was to be expected. The fact that I was deflecting any bullets at all was a good sign, but it was obviously quite difficult. Going from having my sword unsheathed and ready in front of me and taking the extra fraction of a second longer it takes to unsheathe my sword was going to take some getting used to, but I'd just have to learn to cope. This was good for my reflexes, and if I manage to fully block Sam's shots, I think I'll truly be to the point where I can accurately deflect bullets without my Semblance in the heat of combat.

Granted, that still puts me behind better trained huntsmen and even some of my fellow students such as Pyrrha, but that's what I get for not having a sparring buddy for most of my life.

Sam's not getting as much training out of this, but I get the feeling that he's enjoying finally being on the winning end of this spar for the first time in a while. This training exercise used to mostly be Sam's way of picking his shots and feinting. I had explained to him that some of our opponents were going to be able to deflect bullets, even when they're fighting someone else. By practicing against me, he might learn a trick or two that could catch them off guard. He's certainly learned a fair few trick shots. I'm not sure how his aura bullets bounce off of walls and other solid objects, but they do.

Professor Goodwitch seemed interested in our method of sparring, and came over to comment. "Now what are the two of you doing?" She inquired.

I decided to respond, keeping my eyes on Sam to let him know that we were still continuing. "Well, Sam and I-" I quickly slashed my sword, attempting to deflect the shot sent my way from Sam, just barely missing it as the aura bullet collides with my own aura shield. I sigh and re-sheathe my sword. I turn to face the professor to give her my full attention. "Sam and I have been training together for a while. We're pretty used to how we fight by now, so we decided to use our time to train instead, since my basic skills are still behind Sam's." I explained, not technically lying, but also not telling the whole truth either.

"Hm. I suppose that is acceptable. I expect the two of you to participate in spars with the rest of the class in the future, however." She said. "Your performance in the future will tell me whether or not you can be pitted against a full team, seeing as you are lacking two members."

"Yes ma'am." I respond. "We'll do our best."

"Very good. As you were."

With those final words, Goodwitch left to focus on another pair, and Sam and I square off against each other. We continue our own little sparring match for a while, before Sam decides to strike up a conversation to help pass the time.

"So, you're coming back to the table tomorrow, right?" Sam asked.

I successfully deflect an incoming bullet from Sam. He'd been shooting in the same area for the last few shots, so this one was easy to predict. "Dunno. Probably not."

"Seriously James? You didn't even talk today! That's not enough!" Sam retorted, firing off another shot, which I failed to deflect, since he suddenly decided to shoot at my legs instead of my chest.

I groaned in frustration at failing to block a shot yet again. "I don't know Sam… I just… Feel intimidated, you know? They're all these larger-than-life people… They're still characters in my mind, and I'm just… Me."

I sigh. "Plus, It's hard to look at them knowing that one of them is going to die… And I can't let them know anything about it."

Sam scowled. "I still don't get why you won't tell me who dies. All you've told me is that it's not Weiss." He fired another shot at me, which I again failed to block.

"I'm treating you like I'm treating everyone else." I respond. "The less you know of the future, the more it will resemble what I know, and the more I can try to fix."

This had actually been a point of contention between the two of us. Sam had only made it halfway through season three, so just far enough that he had a feeling things were going to get bad, but not enough that he saw Pyrrha's death. He only knew about the Maidens and the relics because I had told him. It had felt necessary, really. I had also told him about Salem and her little group, informing him that they'd managed to make Cinder the Fall Maiden. That's how Sam knew that Jaune and Ren were safe, since I had told him that Maidens had to be women.

Honestly, I still don't quite know whether or not telling Sam what he missed is a good idea or not. A large part of me says it is, but I can't quite figure out why. Because of that thought, I've decided to hold back on telling Sam, since once I give him knowledge of the future, there's no going back. If I get desperate, I'll let him know everything I do. However, everything that he doesn't yet know I'm not letting him know. I feel bad, but I don't know if he'd do or say something bad on accident because he knows that Pyrrha is going to die. Hell, he might even do the same for Penny. The odds of him doing this is admittedly low, but I don't think I can take the chance.

"Whatever. We've argued about that enough." Sam grumbled. We really had. When we first met, that's one of the things that I'd done that had made Sam quite upset. It'd been one of our few true arguments since then, and neither of us had felt like backing down.

"But I get what you're saying about the others being a bit larger than life. I felt like that at first, but I got used to them, and now they're no different than other people." Sam said with a smile. "I'm sure you'll feel the same way after a while."

I shrug. "Maybe. Regardless, lunchtime is perfect for training, so I'd rather be doing that. I've still got a long way before I can catch up to an average Beacon student, let alone teams RWBY and JNPR."

Sam shook his head. "No, you really don't. Yeah, fighting without aura is your weakness, but when you fight with aura? I genuinely don't know who could stand up to you at full capacity. Hell, with a bit more training, I think you could probably take on Cinder."

"Yeah, but for fighting Grimm or the White Fang, I've got nothing. I need to be good enough to not fall back on my Semblance for them, or else I won't be able to rely on it when I do manage to reach Cinder."

My style of fighting was apparently an actual formal style. A "Semblance Fighter" as my school text tells me. Not especially common, given the fact that not everyone's Semblance is useful enough to be a crutch in combat. The only Semblance fighter I can think of from the show would probably be Yang, but she's good enough that she doesn't always have to rely on her Semblance. I'm not the same unfortunately. In addition, I don't have much practice with fighting while using my Semblance, mostly because I don't have someone to spar against that could hold up. I could just keep beating Sam up, but I don't think that'd work quite right. Finally, there was the ever-present issue of my small aura pool, which I still hadn't found a solution to.

"Whatever. Still, it's not like an extra hour's going to do much more for you anyways." Sam commented.

"An extra hour a day for every day of the week will be almost a full day of practice after three weeks. We've got twenty weeks until the Vytal festival, which is almost over a hundred hours of practice." I retorted. "That's good enough for me."

Goodwitch blew the whistle signifying the end of class. Sam shot me a meaningful look before we both grouped up with the others to listen to the professor's words.

"I am mostly pleased by what I witnessed today. I believe that you all have the makings of fine huntsmen and huntresses. I expect all of you to continue training with your partner outside of class, for next time you will be paired up with another group to spar against. Class dismissed."

I had already been shuffling through the moment I realized that she started, since I figured she was going to dismiss the class at the end. I was far away from Sam, and simply speed-walked towards the exit. I knew Sam wasn't going to let the subject drop, but I honestly hoped that this would be one of those subjects that he simply let go after a while.

Little did I know that one of my fellow team leaders had seen me depart, and decided to pursue.

I had finally reached a training room that I felt would take Sam long enough to pick that he'd probably just give up. I stretched a little bit, which wasn't something I did prior to Sam beating the habit into me. This training room, like many others, came equipped with a variety of training machines in order to help teams simulate real life fights against actual opponents. One of these training machines simply fired out a copious amount of bullets, which would stop firing the moment any of the participants aura dropped below a certain amount.

I wanted to use it to practice deflecting rapid-fire projectiles from a variety of directions at the same time. I couldn't practice that very often, and I wanted to see how much of a time dilation I had to get up to in order to get a hundred percent of the bullets deflected or dodged. I expected somewhere around a 6:1 dilation, but I had never really gotten the chance to use one of these machines before with my Semblance because they were all in public locations where anyone could see what I was capable of.

However, I didn't have that problem at Beacon. Because this was a private room, I simply put up a sign on the door saying that the room was taken, and people would stay away. Well, that and the fact that the doors lock whenever the room detects some form of combat, or the equipment is running. This is so that someone doesn't enter the room and get a bullet to the face with no time to react.

I went to a panel in the wall, and selected the training mode that I had in mind. The machine revved up. I walked the middle of the circle, surrounded by automated turrets that rose from out of the ground. A voice started counting down.

"Three…" I pulled out my sword.

"Two…" I bent my knees in preparation.

"One…" I activate my Semblance at a 6:1 dilation, the amount that I believe will work for this scenario.

Immediately, I hear a shot from my right and left simultaneously. I quickly look right first, and move my blade to intercept the bullet, while at the same time moving my sheathe. I manage to move my eyes in time to adjust the course of my sheathe to block the bullet on my left. I hear another bang from directly behind me, so I slide to the left, dodging the shot. The next shot comes from directly in front of me, giving me plenty of time to deflect it with my blade. I look over my shoulder at the next loud noise, shifting the sheathe behind my back in order to deflect the shot.

This kept going on and on, and I was lucky that there were very few shots that were truly simultaneous, since doing so is almost impossible. For me, I had only the slightest bit of time to react to the bullet while it was mid-flight. Still much longer than normal, but not enough to be able to take my time. However, what made this exercise possible for me was that my Semblance made it so that the time between shots was actually a few seconds rather than the execution squad it would be more akin to for anyone else is that my Semblance made it so that the time between each shot for each gun was more than half a second as opposed to the normal tenth of a second that it would be normally. While I as well as many other students at Beacon could probably block that kind of fire from one direction, having guns firing from every direction at random makes it significantly more difficult as one would expect.

However, this exercise was more difficult than I had initially expected. I certainly couldn't block every bullet coming my way. Most of them, sure, but not all like I was hoping. After about five real minutes, my aura has been completely depleted because of a combination of bullets making it through my defenses and my aura being drained constantly by my Semblance. Normally I can keep up a 6:1 dilation for around eight minutes, so that tells me that I'll need to practice quite a bit before I can get to the point where bullets are a non-issue at that dilation. I'd like to see what it would be like at a 10:1 dilation, but I'll need to wait for my Aura to completely regenerate before I can do that.

My musing about future plans was interrupted by a very loud shout.

"That… Was… AWESOME!" I heard a familiar voice shout behind me. I quickly turned around just in time to see flower petals in my face as Ruby rushed next to me, stars in her eyes. My eyes widen in shock seeing her here. I apparently hadn't noticed her following me, and she had decided to come into the room without me noticing.

"Your sword was moving so fast! How did you do that?! Can you teach me?" She asked quickly.

I start to get nervous. This isn't good. I wasn't sure if Ruby would agree to keep the secret of my Semblance from the others. I obviously can't teach her what I just did, since all I did was use my Semblance and block some shots. I could maybe convince her that I'm just holding back in class, but in the end that would just be me trying to get her to keep a secret anyways, so why not just tell Ruby the truth since she's already found out?

I sigh in resignation. I guess I don't have much of a choice now. "No, sorry. It's not really a technique, it's my Semblance." I explain.

That doesn't seem to disappoint Ruby though. If anything, it makes her even more interested. "Oh, okay. What's your Semblance? It looks really cool."

Well, here we go. Hopefully I can convince her. "If I tell you, can you promise not to tell anyone? And I really mean ANYONE. It's kind of important to me."

Ruby cocks her head in confusion. "Huh? Why?"

Why indeed. How could I explain this to Ruby? Should I just let her know everything? How much information do I let her know? I actually turn my Semblance on to a 10:1 dilation so that I have time to think. It'll drain my already low aura to almost nothing, but I need to think this through quickly.

Explanation 1: The truth. Let Ruby know everything. All my plans, all my knowledge. Needless to say, this plan has some problems. I have absolutely no way of knowing whether or not Ruby would actually believe me, but on the off chance that she does, I have no way of knowing how she'd act. I can almost guarantee that she won't be able to act normal in front of Cinder and Emerald however, so if I do that then subtlety might be going out the window.

Explanation 2: Claiming that people would probably hunt me down for my Semblance. This… is a bit of a stretch. While yes, I could make some devices that don't normally function properly work using precise applications of my Semblance, I highly doubt it's something I have to worry about. Ruby might wisen up to this and figure out that there's more to the story, and pressure me as to why I'm not telling her everything, making me feel like even more of a scumbag than I already will for lying to Ruby. In addition, I wouldn't put it past Ruby to actually somehow piece together what's happening through sheer tenacity.

Finally, Explanation 3, the last explanation I could come up with in such a short time frame: No explanation. Simply say that it's important to me that no one else knows what my Semblance is. Let Ruby come to her own conclusion, but hint that I'd really rather not go into my reason why my Semblance is secret from everyone else. The best lie is one that you never have to make, after all.

Explanation 3 was what I decided to go through with. "Please Ruby, it's… Really important to me that you don't tell anyone? Please?"

Ruby frowns thoughtfully for a few moments and then pouts and nods grudgingly. "Fiiiiine. I won't tell anyone, I promise. Now C'mon! Tell me!" She said, getting a little impatient.

I let out a deep breath in relief. I was just happy she agreed to keep it a secret. Whether or not she could do so was another matter altogether, but at least I knew Ruby would keep her promise.

"As far as I can tell? Time manipulation." I explain with a grin, knowing what Ruby's reaction is probably going to be.

Ruby blinks a few times in confusion, and then her eyes widen comically. "HUH?!" She exclaimed incredulously.

I chuckle. "Well, it's more like I can control how time affects anywhere in my aura. So what you saw me do was just me speeding up my perception of time so that I had more time to react to the bullets."

"Oh." Ruby replied, though she seemed somewhat… Disappointed? With my explanation. "So you can't go back in time?"

I shake my head. "Nah. Even if I figured out how to reverse the flow of time with my Semblance, I still wouldn't be going back in time, I'd just be changing my body to how I was in the past."

"That's still really cool though!"

I nod. "Yeah, but it's got a few problems. Even though I practice with my Semblance all the time, all I've figured out to do so far is give myself more time to act, and I can't help but feel like I should be able to do more." I then fold my arms. "On top of that, even though my aura capacity is above average, my Semblance burns through it so fast that I can't really use it for as long as I'd like."

"Ohhhh… Well… Sorry to hear that then."

I shrug. "Eh, it's fine. I'll just need to keep training and hope for a breakthrough in one of the two areas. If I can overcome either of those obstacles, I'd be happy."

Ruby's expression suddenly perked up, as if she suddenly remembered something. "Hey James, are you gonna come back and eat with us tomorrow? We didn't mean to not talk to you! It was an accident!"

"Eh. I'm not sure. I'm not really used to hanging out, especially not with other people. I kinda doubt I'd really add much to your group, so I figured my time would be better spent training. I've got a lot of work to do if I want to get better, after all." I explain.

Ruby doesn't seem to like that idea much though. "I get that, I mean, back at Patch I had a few friends, but we never talked very much. I didn't think that everyone would want me around here, but the others are awesome! They'll make sure you feel right at home!"

I smile slightly, attempting to hide my awkward attempts at not socializing with the rest of the cast of RWBY. "I'm sure Ruby. Thank you again for the offer, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to decline." I state, firmly attempting to end this line of discussion. I was kind of sick of hearing it for the day, and I just wanted it to end.

"I'll fight you for it." Ruby replies.

I raise an eyebrow. "Huh?" I respond elegantly.

"We can spar, if you win I'll stop asking, and if I win you come eat with us. C'mon! It'll be fun!" She encourages me.

Honestly, at that point it sounded like a good idea. Once I have all of my Aura back, I'll probably be able to beat Ruby with my Semblance. Then I won't have to worry about any of this, and I'll get more experience fighting better fighters.

I think about it a bit longer, and come to the conclusion that it's not the worst idea ever. I nod in acceptance. "Alright, I'm fine with that."

Ruby grins, and grabs Crescent Rose from behind her back and lets it flip out and get embedded into the ground. "Alright, ready?" She asks, much to my confusion.

"What? No. I need time for my Aura to recharge." I explain.

"Nope! Now's good!" Ruby responds, an innocent smile on her face.

… That move was far more devious that I thought Ruby was capable of. I sigh. "Well played." I respond, unsheathing my sword and activating my passive 3:1 dilation. There's no way I stand a chance without it, not that I have any delusions that I'll stand a chance anyways. I'd fought against a bunch of melee fighters in the past (and I had to in order to pass the battle exams), but Ruby was going to be on a whole other level.

"Alright, GO!" She shouts, zooming at me faster than the bullets that I just deflected.

My eyes widen in shock as I immediately backstep to dodge the scythe swipe aimed at my midsection. I then jump forwards and block Ruby's Scythe close to the handle with my sheathe while I go in for a quick vertical slash with my sword. However, Ruby nimbly twirls while pressing her scythe on my Sheathe, keeping me locked in a strength contest while she aims the head of Crescent Rose at me and pulls the trigger. I barely have enough time to duck the incoming shot, and now Ruby's a good distance away from me, taking shots at me. Luckily Ruby doesn't quite have the same aim that Sam does, so advancing on her and deflecting her shots is fairly trivial.

Once I re-engage my opponent at melee range, I dash towards Ruby while slicing at her with a diagonal strike from my sword. Ruby swats my sword with her much heavier weapon and uses her momentum to continue her motion and throw my sword across the room. She attempts to continue that motion further to spin around and whack me with her scythe like it was a hammer, but while her back was turned I'd already ran back to where my sword had ended up.

I was forced to start using my knives now that I no longer had my sword. I wasn't much with melee knife fighting though, so I would have to stick to throwing. I throw a knife at Ruby as she finishes her swing, but she spins her Scythe to deflect the shot. She decides to get into a ranged battle with me and switches Crescent Rose into its gun form, so I start moving while throwing knives at her, which she soon follows suit with Crescent Rose.

We go back and forth like this for a while, and while Ruby has almost landed a shot or two on me, I'm the only one that's done any damage. Ruby decides that enough is enough though, and switches her weapon back to scythe form while spinning it to deflect my incoming knife. Then I see a swirl of flower petals, and my vision goes black.

I blink my eyes open, and the first thing that I see is a teary-eyed Ruby looking down at me, seemingly mortified that she'd knocked me out. "Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to hurt you! Are you okay?!"

I groan in response. "Yeah… Once my Aura kicks in, I should be fine…"

"I'm SO sorry! I just thought that, you know, once we got going you'd have enough to take a hit or two…"

I shook my head. "No, that's my fault. I had to use my Semblance a bit in order to even stand a chance against you… Figures you were holding back though. I've still got a long ways to go."

Ruby chuckled sheepishly. "Yeah, sorry… I didn't want to hurt your feelings too much, but I wasn't really trying too hard there until the end."

I wave off her apologies. "No, I'm aware I've got a long ways to go… It's why I wanted lunch times to train."

"What if I helped you?" Ruby asked.

I cock my head in confusion at her. "What?"

"Well, I mean, you don't train with people much, yeah? Maybe if I trained with you, you'd get a whole lot better!" She paused. "Not during lunch though." She giggled. "You lost that bet."

I sigh in defeat. "Yeah, I know. I'll join you guys."

"Aw, cheer up! It'll be fun!" Ruby responded.

"Well, I certainly hope so now." I respond dryly. "'Cause now I don't have much of a choice!"

She continued to giggle at that, not feeling guilty in the slightest. She decided to stay with me while I recovered, and the two of us started talking. Eventually, she got around to asking where I was from before Beacon.

I shrug nonchalantly at her question. "Well, I was technically born in Mistral, but I lived all over the place really. I stayed in Vacuo and travelled around the outlying Mistral territories, but I visited Atlas every once in a while. That's when I met Sam, and once he and I became friends I stayed there for around two years until we both came to Beacon."

Ruby furrowed her brows. She realized something off about my story. "What about your parents?" She asked. "They must have had weird jobs to travel so much."

I shook my head. "Nah. I haven't seen my parents in eleven years. I raised myself on the streets."

"Oh! What happened to them?" Ruby asked, then seemed to realize that what she asked might be a bit too personal. "I-I mean… If you're okay with telling me…"

I shrug again. "Dunno really. One morning I'm sleeping in my bed, happy with my life with my family, and the next I'm waking up on the streets of Mistral. I know that they didn't just abandon me… They were an awesome family, but I haven't been able to find them." I actually had tried. I'd looked through public records, trying to find anyone that looked like a member of my family. It was depressingly easy to find out that that wasn't the case. Considering the extremely hostile world that I found myself in, the population was leagues below that of Earth. The total population was in the tens of millions rather than the billions that we had found ourselves in on Earth. Still, I wasn't one hundred percent sure, and still kept an eye out for anyone from Earth to this day, especially after meeting up with Sam.

My story makes Ruby curious. "Huh… That's weird. And you still don't know why it happened?"

I shake my head. "Nah. No idea. What about you? Where'd you grow up before Beacon?"

"Oh, I went to Signal Academy back in Patch. It was really cool! My dad's a teacher there, and I got to learn how to build Crescent Rose." She replied.

I nodded my head. "Yeah, I figured you'd made that. It's not something I think I could find at a store."

"Do you have a cool weapon? I uh, kinda like weapons…" She asked, sheepishly looking at the ground and kicking some dust with her foot.

"Nah, never had much money. Only reason why I even have a sword is 'cause some kind huntsman bought it for me. Most of my knives I just found. Even if I had the money, I've never gone to school anyways, so I wouldn't know how to build anything. Everything I know I've learned from public libraries." And a previous life worth's education, but that's not something I can really tell Ruby.

"Oh… That… Really sucks. Sorry." Ruby apologized out of reaction.

"Why? Not your fault that I lived on my own. Besides, even though I didn't get an education, I don't think I ended up too badly. Yeah, I could be better, but I got this far and I can say that I'm almost completely self-trained."

That seemed to mollify Ruby a little bit. "I guess that is a little cool… Still, I'm sorry that you don't have an awesome weapon… Maybe I could help you make one!" She finishes excitedly.

Her expression lets me know that this isn't actually much of a request. I've got a good feeling that if I said 'no' here, she'd just go out and make me something. Not that I was going to refuse anyways, Ruby was probably the best weaponsmith around, considering the fact Ozpin considers her creation 'one of the deadliest weapons in the world'.

"Sure! On two conditions. One: I get to help you as we go, and two: I pay for it."

"What?! No! You just said you have like, no money!" Ruby protested.

I shake my head. "I have a bunch saved up that I don't have to spend on food anymore because of my scholarship. I think I'll be fine."

She seems to want to protest some more, but eventually accepts my conditions. She looks at her scroll to check the time, and her eyes widen in shock.

"Oh man, I'm so late! Sorry James, I've gotta go! I was supposed to meet with my team five minutes ago!" She shouts as she runs out of the door.

A moment later, her head pokes back into the door. "I better see you at lunch tomorrow mister!" She shouts before disappearing in a flourish of petals.

I chuckle in amusement. Oh well, there goes my lunchtime training. And probably some other training sessions that I wanted so that I can build my weapons. And probably more training when I'll get dragged off to hang out with the others.

I look around. There's knives everywhere. I start cleaning up as I go over the events that just occurred. Ruby's a really nice person. However, the fact that I lost so badly to her is a bad sign. While I barely used my Semblance, that doesn't excuse how handily she wiped the floor with me. Hopefully by training with her more, I'll get more used to fighting higher-skill melee fighters, which I'm not used to doing. I'm used to fighting Sam and the odd fighter in training fights, and the occasional fistfight in Vacuo. Ruby, who is probably one of the most highly skilled members of the cast, is out of my league without my Semblance.

Regardless, I guess I'll give the others another try. Ruby finding out about my Semblance is… Interesting, and not something that I'd expected. I'm gonna be honest, I didn't think I'd be able to keep it a complete secret for long, but hopefully Ruby won't tell the rest of her team just yet. Maybe I should think about telling teams RWBY and JNPR once I get to know them better? My main reason for not telling them is that if they don't talk about it at all there's no way that anyone can know about it.

However, I'm starting to realize that I might be getting a little bit too secretive here. Yeah, not telling anyone reduces the chance of anyone finding out about my Semblance, but I don't think it'll get out even if I tell the others.

I shake my head of those thoughts. I needed to concentrate. I had homework to… Ah, screw it. I was gonna procrastinate. Why lie to myself?

 **A/N:**

 **Wow this chapter was hard to write. Expect my update speed to take a massive hit, because I have no idea whether or not these chapters will come as easily as this or not. Don't worry though, I won't abandon this. I've got cool ideas down the line that I want to use.**

 **So yeah, my character is based off me, and I… Don't do well with new people. The lunch that I sat at is based off of actual experiences. That's with an 's' as in plural. So yeah, even though RWBY and JNPR are awesome people, I can totally see them accidentally forgetting about me when I just don't say anything.**

 **I'm a bit worried that I haven't quite got Ruby's personality down, so if you guys could let me know what you think of her dialogue here, that'd help me out a ton!**

 **Reviews:**

 **Harbinger The Reaper - Glad I could help! I had wanted to get something out for New Years as well, but this chapter was a pain to write.**

 **Hitler's Moustache - Yeah, the perspective's kind of going to be split three ways (SI, Sam, and Ruby), but for a while most of the focus is going to be on James.**

 **Bomberguy789 - Don't worry. I think I've got the idea of reversing time under control. I've actually thought a ton about my character's powers, and I think you're gonna like it.**

 **I'm also soon going to go back and edit the last chapter so that Weiss doesn't cry the second time, just to make it a little more realistic (or at least in my mind)**

 **Guest - Honestly, I hadn't realized it, but Sam and I interact a lot in group settings, so us saying each other's names just seemed natural to me. I'll try to keep your advice in mind in the future however.**

 **Thank you for that catch, I'll be sure to fix it immediately, I don't know how either of us missed it, but whatever.**

 **Regarding the 'focusing' theory: Wait and see. I'm going in a different direction than you're thinking, but I'm not gonna spoil it. Although I touched the main aspects of it in this chapter.**

 **TheRPlion - Yep, plus I'm kind of going into this whole mess with self-confidence issues in the first place. You've just touched on one of the overarching themes of this story.**

 **EDIT: To all those that got spammed with notifications, I'm sorry. Fanfiction was being weird with posting the newest chapter, and for whatever reason would only show up that I had three chapters after I posted this one. Hopefully it's now fixed, but I had to repost this chapter and the last one in order to fix it.**


	6. Problems with CRDL

_Day x+y+3053_

 _So, the plan to change as little as possible is shot to hell now. Sam hated it, and if that wasn't enough, Ruby decided that I needed to be more social, and that was pretty much the end of that._

 _I've gone over with Sam just how what we should do in the future. Ideally, we want to prevent the fall of Beacon entirely. Barring that, we want to prevent Cinder from getting the powers of the Fall Maiden. If I can't even change that, then at the bare minimum I want to save Pyrrha and Penny._

 _Those are our priorities, in that order. The problem that we have is that we actually have next to no resources to achieve this plan. I'm seriously reconsidering the idea of anonymously giving Ozpin the information on the future that we have._

 _Pros:_

 _Ozpin has access to better resources than we do, basically can call up any huntsman at any time._

 _Qrow is a great scout, since he can actually turn into a crow, allowing us to find the bases of operations of our enemies._

 _Ozpin has much more experience at leading than Sam or I do, and will likely come up with better plans._

 _Cons:_

 _Unsure if it will actually matter at this point. Entire police force of Vale unable to find Roman Torchwick._

 _Even if Cinder fails, there is likely a contingency plan in place to make Beacon fall anyways._

 _Not sure why Salem doesn't just tell all of the Grimm in the immediate vicinity to attack Beacon anyways. (However, Ozpin might know)_

… _Well, it seems kind of obvious that Sam's going to have to approach Ozpin himself about the information soon. Keeping me as a backup for the knowledge is still our strategy going forwards, so Sam won't be mentioning me._

 _If Ozpin for some reason doesn't do anything or believe us, our first move will be to somehow get placed on team RWBY's first mission, and hopefully we'll be able to stop the train before it crashes a hole in Vale's outer walls. Then we need to let Ozpin and Ironwood know about the virus spreading through Atlas' forces._

 _Then-_

"James, come ON! We're gonna be late for class!" Sam shouted from outside our room, interrupting my journal session.

It'd been a bit more than a week since Ruby had beat me in a spar. I still haven't really bonded with anyone besides Ruby just yet, but that's mostly because we're all trying to get into a good schedule now that we're at Beacon.

"Sam, if I don't get this done right now, I'm never going to get it done." I reply calmly.

He peeks inside and sees that I'm still in my school uniform. "What are you still doing in your uniform?! It's our first day of sparring! Hurry up and get changed!"

I wave him off, still writing in my journal. "Just one more minute."

"We don't have one more minute! Class starts in two!"

I sigh in exasperation, then activate my Semblance to a 10:1 dilation, blitzing through the last few sentences of my journal and then zooming to the bathroom to change. This all happens in just under half a minute, after which I am next to Sam in my combat gear.

"Happy? I even remembered to pack a bunch of dust knives like you asked."

Sam simply glares at me, before turning around and sprinting towards class. I follow right behind him, knowing that I probably did need to hurry.

"And now we're going to be tired for our fight. Thanks a lot James." Sam snarked.

"Oh please. You're just under Pyrrha's skill level. The odds of us losing a fight are practically zero."

"-And next, team JS will be fighting team CRDL. Fighters, please come down to the sparring ring." Professor Goodwitch announces.

Sam glared at me. "I hate you so much."

I refused to meet his gaze, choosing to instead look at the floor dejectedly as we walked down to the sparring ring. While I didn't know much about the rest of the team, Cardin Winchester was a minor antagonist in the show, good enough to be in the Atlas tournament, and because of that, someone who had an absolutely MASSIVE grudge against Sam (who had beaten him twice in said tournaments).

So yeah, this wasn't going to be fun for us. I know that Pyrrha was able to take them out with minimal use of her Semblance, but Pyrrha's Semblance is pretty freaking good in a fight. Sam could probably take on the entire team himself if he really had to, but Cardin had already fought Sam twice already, so he knew a lot of Sam's tricks. I was still pretty confident in our victory, but if we won Cardin would only get angrier at Sam.

We took our places at one end of the arena, and faced off against team CRDL. Cardin sneered directly at Sam and hefted his mace over his shoulder. Sam simply narrowed his eyes right back at Cardin. He wasn't the biggest fan of the other boy either, having remembered his actions from the show.

The rest of Cardin's team seemed to dislike the two of us almost as much as their leader for whatever reason. I close my eyes and sigh. This was going to be a pain.

Professor Goodwitch shouts 'begin' and their team takes off after us like four miniature rockets. Sam and I immediately jump back and start launching projectiles. Most don't take, but hey, that's our main form of attack. We're feeling out our opponents, seeing what works and what doesn't. Unfortunately, all we learned was that our opponents won't just take hits from knives and bullets to the face.

… Actually, that's a lie. We've also learned what their strategy is. Cardin was going straight for Sam, whereas the other three were going straight for me. In hindsight, I totally should have seen this coming, but for now I need a quick way out of this mess before I get triple-teamed. I leap backwards, dropping a few daggers as I do so. Sam quickly sees what's happening, and shoots his shotgun behind in order to propel towards Cardin at absurdly fast speeds. I see him land a flying kick right before I hear the sound of gunfire and instinctively roll out of the way, activating the dust that was in the few daggers from before.

One knife had gravity dust in it, which pulled the three together. The force wasn't very strong, but it was enough for my purposes. It made sure that they were all within about five feet of each other, perfect for the rest of the trap. The next knife to trigger was filled with steam dust. I used to use water dust for this trap but recently realized that steam dust was more ideal and hurt more.

The steam dust let out a large cloud of, well, steam. While the scalding temperatures of this steam probably didn't do much to my opponents, it was only meant as a set-up for the final part of my trap. The final two knives were filled with lightning dust, which violently exploded and sent electricity through the entire cloud of steam.

I'd remembered doing something like this in a game back on Earth, and wondered if I could replicate it. While the steam cloud doesn't keep the lightning going indefinitely, it amplifies the lightning and almost guarantees that it'll hit everyone within it.

I briefly glance at the big screen, looking to see how my the aura levels of my opponents were. Two of them seemed to get hit hard, having lost somewhere around a third of their reserves, but the final one had only lost about a quarter. Still, I was satisfied with those results.

I saw movement coming out from my right, and see Cardin zoom in my direction. I lean back to avoid the enemy leader, while quickly slipping a knife onto his belt as he passes by. It happens so fast that no one even notices that I just reverse-pickpocketed Cardin.

The flying enemy leader seems to distract the other three members for a split moment, which is enough for me to send another knife at each of them. Unfortunately, it seems that they were able to react in time. The one with the sword-revolver shot a knife out of the air, the dual-wielder deflected his with one of his swords, and the guy with the axe-shotgun spun his axe around in front of himself to deflect the projectile.

Luckily, those weren't normal knives. They had been knives filled with ice dust, encasing their weapons and attached arms in ice. This still works in my favor, since now those two fighters are temporarily out of commision as they attempt to free their arms from the ice. I had been aiming for complete encasement, but this would have to do. For the time being, I was only fighting the guy with the sword-gun.

He fires shot after shot in my direction. Unfortunately for him, I'd gotten so used to deflecting bullets by this point that it was too easy for me to simply block the shots with my sword and sheath.

As I blocked his projectiles, I stole a quick glance at Sam's fight. He had started to bust out his dust manipulation. A small pinchful of dust, amplified by his Semblance, turned into a large lightning bolt that Cardin barely managed to dodge, leaving him open to a few hits from Sam's sniper rifle.

I turned back to my opponents. It looked like the guy that was just shooting me realized that I could deflect anything that he shot in my direction, so he began rushing towards me for a melee fight. I look past him and see that his two teammates are making disturbingly quick progress on freeing their limbs from the ice that I had hoped would permanently take them out of the fight. I quickly throw a lightning knife at the axe-wielder, but he just rolls out of the way.

I am suddenly on the defensive from the enemy that had decided to attack me at close range. My reflexes scream at me to use my Semblance, but I know that I shouldn't. Not only do I not want to give a hint that I even have a Semblance, but I also want to see how I compare to a normal hunter-in-training without it.

He's definitely fast. He jumps towards me and does a powerful overhead swing, which I wisely turn my body to the side to avoid. I follow with a quick blow from my katana, holding out my sheathe to block the inevitable counter. What I was not prepared for, however, was the point-blank gunshot to the chest that he let loose. My aura sprung to life automatically to deflect the attack, which still managed to push me back a good few feet.

I grunt in surprise, and barely managed to deflect the other shot that immediately followed the first.

 _Right… So this guys' sword is actually much more dangerous up close than far away… But he'll need to reload eventually. In that case…_ I thought to myself, planning how to take on my opponent.

He charged me again, and I ducked to the side again, seemingly attempting the same tactic as last time. However, just before he was about to shoot me, I ducked low and cut open the ammo pouch hanging on his belt, spilling his bullet all over the place. I quickly disengage from him, kicking his ammo all over the floor as I do so.

He grits his teeth, and realizes that it would be incredibly impractical from now on to recover any more bullets. I briefly look behind him at the other two, and unfortunately it seems that they've almost managed to free their arms from their frozen confines. I would need to wrap up my fight with my opponent fast.

I hear a 'boom' noise, and then feel something hit me from the side, which hits me so hard that I drop my weapons. Sam had been launched at me, sending me and him tumbling across the floor. I shake my head and disentangle him from me, looking up just in time to see Cardin rushing in fast with his mace. I quickly pull Sam with me and dash out of the way, barely avoiding the shockwave that his mace leaves in the wake of the impact.

I activate my Semblance to give myself more time to think up a plan. Two members of their team are still incapacitated, Cardin is directly in front of us, and the guy with the sword-gun has no ammo left in his sword, halving his efficiency. If the two of us gang up on Cardin to get him out quickly, and then follow up with the sword-gun guy, we'd be fighting with even odds.

Alternatively, we could end them all in one go. It just so happened that Sam and I had come up with a tactic that would work perfectly here. It's incredibly expensive and has limited usage in real combat, so I'm not terribly upset that everyone's going to know about it.

"Sam! Overkill!" I shout.

He looks at me with a questioning look, obviously wondering why the hell I've decided to use this strategy. The name is fairly descriptive: no matter who we're fighting, this is completely overkill and completely inelegant. There's no real finesse to this tactic, and it only really works when all of our opponents are incapacitated. He's probably wondering how the hell I'm planning on incapacitating the remaining two enemies, but he shrugged.

"If you say so." He responds.

Immediately following his response, the two of us rush towards the two members of CRDL that still had ice on their arms. The other two members following in our wake. I push my coat to the side and quickly unhook the clasp of one of my knife belts. Sam and I move to either side of the two enemies that we're rushing, and I activate the knife that I'd stashed on Cardin earlier, which is filled with gravity dust, clumping all of our enemies into one place and knocking their heads together, dazing them slightly. This is the all the opening that Sam and I need though, and we enact our plan.

I head clockwise around all of them, passing one end of the knife belt and grab the other one. Once we're on the other side, Sam shoots his shotgun behind him, and I activate my Semblance.

As Sam moves past me, he lets go of his end of the knife belt, and grabs my arm. I quickly re-clasp the two ends and then let go, deactivating my Semblance as I do. Once we're sufficiently far away, Cardin's eyes widened in dawning realization, but it's too late. I detonate all of the knives on the knife belt.

It's a little hard to explain what happened next. I'm going to be honest, I'm not entirely sure what all of the dust on that belt is. However, considering that I've recently started loving gravity dust, that was probably why it was an implosion instead of an explosion. As it stands, a fireball filled with lightning surrounds the members of team CRDL. I watch the aura gauges up on the screen as they rapidly deplete. Cardin apparently has a ton of aura in reserve, as his isn't dropping as quickly as his teammates.

Three of them have their aura in the red now, so they're out of the fight. However, Cardin still has about a third of his aura left, so he's still in the fight. He's on the ground, reeling from the overwhelming dust attack, but he's still in the fight. He rips the belt that's wrapped around his team and starts to get up. At this point, Sam starts pelting him with shots from his rifle while I close the gap to keep him away from Sam.

He takes a swing at me while kneeling on the ground, hardly flinching from Sam's bullets. I hop backwards and leap towards him, intent on keeping him on the ground. Instead of me doing that however, he merely swings his mace back and knocks me away from him at a ridiculous speed.

I smashed into the wall with enough force that it took out a huge chunk of my aura reserves. Not enough to drop me into the red, but still quite a lot. I quickly sprang to my feet and noticed that Cardin had just managed to do the same. Sam was continuing to pelt him with bullets, but they didn't seem to be doing much to his aura anymore, which was odd.

Either way, it was obvious that Cardin's eyes were only on Sam. That was something I could take advantage of. I threw three dust knives to intercept Cardin's path before he hit Sam, and Sam managed to notice. He shot a quick burst of shots at my knives as they flew through the air, which seemed to confuse Cardin, judging by the enraged expression on his face adopting a pair of furrowed eyebrows.

He must have realized what was going to happen just a moment too late however, as he quickly whirled around just as three ice knives impact his body, freezing him completely solid almost instantly.

Professor Goodwitch cuts in then, announcing the end of combat. "Very good. That's a victory for team JS. Team CRDL, could I please ask you to free your leader from the ice before I give out comments? Mr. Winchester will almost certainly attack either member of team JS the moment he's free."

Groaning, the rest of our opponents gradually rise from their spots on the floor that they were laying on only moments before. All of their aura levels were dangerously low, and I only just now realized how close we'd come to seriously hurting them. Yeah, shouldn't use that technique against people we want to live. Especially not if I manage to get more dust knives added to my arsenal.

I hear an impact, and notice that Cardin's hit one of his team members after they'd freed him from the ice. He looks around frantically before he spots Sam and I. He snarls, and takes a step forward, but Professor Goodwitch speaks up before then.

"Mr. Winchester, the match is over. Please put your weapon down." She reprimands.

He narrows his eyes at the two of us, before he grunts dismissively and lowers his mace. He pointedly looks away from us, keeping his gaze on the professor.

"We'll start with team CRDL. I will be frank. Your starting strategy was relatively sound. Your leader has fought Mr. Scott before, and knows that he can hold his own for a while. While that was happening, if the other three managed to eliminate Mr. Smith, then the match would suddenly become a four versus one, which is a much more favorable situation. However, it became readily apparent that you were not using this strategy because it made sense."

She shook her head disapprovingly and her gaze sharpened. She looked directly at Cardin and it was obvious that what she said next was primarily for him.

"Let me be clear, for this applies to all of you. My class will NOT be used to settle grudges, it will NOT be used to get 'payback', and it is most certainly NOT a chance to let out anger towards your fellow students. IS. THAT. CLEAR?"

Nods all around the room, but Cardin's was slow and didn't look very sincere.

"If I feel like you disobey that rule at any time during my class, your team will instantly be forfeit for that match and your grades will reflect that loss. You will not receive any feedback from myself and you will be denying yourself and your team the chance to improve." She paused for a few moments to let that sink in. "Now, Mr. Lark and Mr. Thrush. The two of you already know what you did wrong. Blocking an enemy's projectile is usually a bad idea, and you have just seen why today. While blocking bullets is fine, throwing knives and larger projectiles can hold much larger dust payloads, as you saw today. In the future, such things should be dodged rather than blocked."

She looked down at her notes before nodding. "Outside of that, the four of you did reasonably well. While your fight might have ended quickly, that was through no fault of your own. Your opponent's unconventional tactics caught you off guard, and I expect all of you to have learned from that."

 _Great. Now people are expecting every trick that I pulled today… So most of them are gonna be harder to pull of in the future. Hooray for me…_ I thought to myself, dreading the rest of my year's matches.

"Now, onto team JS. Because of team CRDL's initial approach, the two of you immediately separated from each other, which considering your small team size, I would consider the action a mistake. If you had both been working together, Mr. Scott likely could have taken advantage of the opportunity Mr. Smith provided by freezing two of his opponents. In addition, most of Mr. Smith's traps may have affected Mr. Winchester. Something to keep in mind for future matches."

"Furthermore, while I will acknowledge that you managed to take out your opponents impressively quickly, I would like to advise the two of you, Mr. Smith especially, to try not to use up so many resources in the future. I am aware of how much dust goes into those knives of yours Mr. Smith, and I know that your usage today is not sustainable. If you cannot win your matches without consuming as much dust as you have been, perhaps consider changing up your style of combat."

"Outside of that, the two of you did admirably. I had my doubts that you would be able to take on a four-man team, but you did. Please show me more of your teamwork next week when you have your next match. All of you may be seated."

And with that, we went back up to where the rest of the class was viewing the remaining battles. Once we sat down, I turned to face Sam.

"See, that wasn't so bad, right?" I asked.

"All of my hate." He responded dryly.

* * *

"So, I still don't really get how the heck your gun works Sam." Jaune said.

We had all gathered up in the library. Sam, Pyrrha, Weiss and Blake were working on homework whereas I was playing some board game I'd never heard of with Ruby, Yang, and Jaune. Nora had run off to do her own thing, and Ren had reluctantly followed to make sure that 'thing' didn't involve mass destruction.

"I mean, you didn't have to reload, and when you shot James' knives, it didn't just knock 'em out of the air, so… What gives?" He asked.

Sam shrugged. "Well, it's a fairly unique gun, though apparently Atlas is starting to mass-produce them, so you might see more like it in the future. It doesn't shoot normal bullets though, just my aura. Ya see, with enough practice, you can project your aura to shoot out a kinda force. My gun just projects it. Only downside is that they don't know how to shoot out dust bullets yet, so I have to count on James to set me up with his knives, or throw out the dust myself."

"Wait, then aren't you using up aura every time you shoot?" Pyrrha asked, curious about Sam's weapon herself.

Sam nodded. "Yeah, but it's hardly anything. I barely even notice it. Even my shotgun doesn't take much out of me, so it's an okay trade."

Weiss nodded affirmatively. "Indeed. Sam was actually one of the first testers for the system in actual combat. He received it just before his first tournament." She said, sounding proud of her friend. "He did so well that Atlas has since moved production of aura-based weaponry to their highest priority!"

"Wow, good job Sam!" Ruby congratulated Sam.

Sam smiled sheepishly. "I think Weiss might be exaggerating just a liiiitle bit. You see -"

"Nope! I have it on good authority that General Ironwood himself was pleased with what he saw from your performance in the tournament, especially since your weapon was extremely ill-suited for one-on-one combat. He was very impressed by your performance." Weiss interrupted.

In response, Sam flushed a tiny bit and buried himself deeper in his homework. "It wasn't THAT impressive…" He muttered to himself. "I still lost…" Everyone had a small chuckle at Sam's expense.

Then Ruby's attention returned to the board, and her eyes widened, and then looked at me in betrayal. "James! Why~" She whined.

I shrugged. "Sorry Ruby. I figured out pretty early on that with my cards I wasn't gonna win, so I figured I might as well take down whoever takes me out of the game with me."

The board game in question was a risk-style game featuring the world of Remnant. I had a large section of Vacuo, but because of Vacuo's climate, the game developers figured that they wouldn't have a whole lot resources. Because of that, and because Vacuo's desert made traps even deadlier, I simply trapped all of my territory to high heaven, since I didn't own the entire lands of Vacuo, and thus couldn't get the large bonus from it.

"Y-you big meanie!"

Yang chuckled. "Looks like it's just you and me now Jauney boy. C'mon! Let's get the REAL game started!"

Jaune simply chuckled nervously. "Um… Sure?"

In about two turns, both Ruby and I were eliminated. I got up and stretched my arms above my head. "Well, that was fun, but I think I'm gonna go walk around campus for a bit. See you guys later."

Everyone nodded absentmindedly and responded with their own goodbyes. Except Ruby, who simply sent one last glare at me before I left. As I started to walk away, I heard Sam, who must have realized why I was really leaving.

"Wait, James! You're-" He started, but I simply turned on my Semblance and speed-walked out of there.

What Sam was going to finish saying was that we had initially gone there together to work on Professor Port's essay assignment, but we got distracted when we ran into RWBY and JNPR. I genuinely hate Professor Port's class, so I'm not really putting much effort into his assignments.

The man was useless as a teacher. He always seemed to be surprised and disappointed when class ended in the middle of one of his stories, which implied that he wasn't keeping proper track of time AND he wasn't able to tell us what he initially wanted to tell us. He didn't teach us much about the Grimm (although occasionally his stories will explain how he managed to kill specific ones), and on top of that, he still hadn't assigned a textbook, so when he references page numbers for the assignments, no one has any idea what the actually hell he's referring to.

It was just a little bit frustrating.

I felt a tap on my right shoulder, and looked to see who was there. I heard a giggle from my left, and saw that it was Ruby.

"Hehe! I got you!" She chuckled.

I smiled at Ruby's playfulness. It had been a lifetime and a half since I'd had friends like Ruby. Don't get me wrong, Sam was great and all, but we didn't spend much time together just 'hanging out' since Remnant. It'd mostly just been training and planning, but considering what's coming up… Well, it's a little justified.

Doesn't mean I didn't miss talking with a friend just because though.

"So, what's up Ruby? I figured you'd want to play another round after Jaune and Yang finished."

Ruby groaned. "Ugh, they're gonna take forEVER!" She exclaimed. "Jaune's kinda good, and Yang loves that game, so I dunno if they'll even get to finish before tonight…"

I shrug. "Hey, Ozpin must have picked him as a leader for a reason, right? He seems like he's got an okay head on his shoulders… When Weiss isn't in the picture."

Ruby flinched at those last words and chuckled sheepishly. "Yeah… He's uh… A little obsessed."

I gave Ruby a deadpan expression. "Ruby, Weiss has actually asked Sam to intervene. She's actually mentioned the fact that he's meant to be her bodyguard. You KNOW how much she hates that, so she's probably pretty close to just stabbing Jaune."

"Oooh… I didn't think she'd be that upset…"

"To be fair, the bouquet of flowers in the middle of the dining hall followed by the love poem while squatting on one knee may have been a bit too much."

Ruby nodded with a sigh. "Anyways! Let's go back to my team's room! I've got some new games!"

She then proceeded to grab me by the hand and drag me back to her dorm room at ridiculously high speeds, leaving behind rose petals and dazed passerby in our wake. I had planned to use this time to figure out how Sam and I were going to handle future events moving forwards, but, well…

That could all wait.

* * *

Ruby was having a ton of fun playing games with James. They had been playing for a few hours now, and it had started to get pretty late, but they were still having fun.

She had clicked well with James. The two of them were pretty socially awkward, and very rarely knew how to talk like regular people. James just flat-out hadn't talked to people for most of his life, and Ruby… Was Ruby. If it didn't involve weapons, killing things, or heroics, she wasn't really that interested.

Philosophy? Beat up the bad guys. Easy.

Politics? Who needs 'em. She'll just go kill Grimm. Then she won't need to deal with evil, evil politics!

Boys? Well, she used to think they were yucky, but Jaune, James, Sam and Ren seemed alright. She wasn't sure why Yang was so obsessed with boys though. That was just weird. Ruby knew about relationships and stuff, but she just didn't see what Yang saw about them.

After all, in all the stories… She shook her head of those thoughts. She needed to focus! James was winning!

"Come on, Come on! I'm not losing to you! Just a little more… There!" She said, catapulting James' character into the sky and executing a finishing combo on him, depleting the remainder of his health bar.

James hung his head in defeat and let out a deep breath. "Ugh. I was so close that time. Come on, I just started playing today! Couldn't you give me a break here?"

Ruby hummed in triumph over James. "I was! That was my worst character!"

James simply put his head in his hands.

"Serves you right! That'll teach you to beat me at battle for Remnant!"

"Ruby, I didn't beat you! I just took you out with me! Heck, if anything you lasted longer than I did!"

Ruby was about to respond when there was a sudden knock on the door. "James, come on out! I know you're in there! The essay's due tomorrow! You need to work on it!"

James and Ruby's gazes met momentarily, before James shrugged and grinned mischievously. He went to the nearby window, opened it, and leapt to the adjacent window, which was his and Sam's room. Ruby giggled at James' antics before opening the door to the hallway.

"Oh, hey Sam! How's it going? What'd you need?" Ruby asked, a large smile on her face.

Sam could immediately tell that something was going on. He looked around the room, and saw that James was nowhere to be seen, even though he had heard his partner's voice in the room just a second ago.

Sam sighed. "Alright, where's he hiding?" He asked.

Ruby simply giggled again. "Hiding? What're you talking about? Nobody's hiding here!"

Sam rolled his eyes and shook his head, walking into the room. "Suuuuure they aren't. I guess I'll just have to look myself."

He started by looking under the beds (even if it was an obvious hiding spot, that didn't mean that James wouldn't use it, just because it was so obvious), then in the closet, the bathroom, under the beds again… Then Sam started getting really desperate, searching on top of the beds, behind the TV, in the bathroom again…

His frantic searching was interrupted by Blake walking through the door. She quirked an eyebrow at seeing Sam in their room and Ruby sitting on her top bunk watching Sam dart around the room, slightly panicking.

"Sam? What are you doing here?" Asked the black-haired girl.

Sam whirled around to look at Blake and let out a sigh of frustration. "Oh, it's you Blake. Sorry, I was looking for James. He still hasn't finished his essay for tomorrow and I could have sworn that I heard his voice in here."

"Um, I just saw him going down the hall towards the library…" She said. "Maybe you just missed him?"

Sam looked confused at Blake's question, and looked like he was about to respond, when something clicked in his head. Ruby's giggles intensified into full on laughter - now complete with snorts! - at Sam's dawning comprehension on what just happened.

"SON OF A-! GAGH!" Sam shouted.

Ruby had to start clutching her chest from the laughter, and she rolled off of her bunk. She was literally rolling on the floor laughing, and didn't look like she was going to stop anytime soon.

Sam flushed brightly and glared at the redhead on the ground before stepping over her and moving past Blake. "Thanks Blake. I'll see you around. I've gotta go hunt my tormentor now."

Blake looked down at Ruby, who still couldn't keep in her laughter, and back at Sam, who was disappearing down the hallway towards the library, then back at Ruby. She shrugged. She had already finished the paper, so she decided she just wasn't going to bother figuring out whatever just happened.

(break)

So, turns out when you don't care about a class, and you have a Semblance that lets you write three times faster than a normal human being, you can write a really bad paper really, really fast.

Considering the fact that Grimm studies was basically independent studying at this point, and I'd already gone out of my way earlier in life to fight as much Grimm as I could, I had a pretty decent understanding of how the more common Grimm fought, which was what the paper was all about. Don't get me wrong, I was nowhere near an expert on the subject, but I figured the paper was probably at least a C-, which in my mind meant 'good enough'.

But what really made me happy was that I was done by the time Sam got to me, panting from the obvious exertion of getting here from our dorm. He glared venomously at me, to which I merely grinned in response. I waved the paper I had just finished in front of his face, and he snatched it out of my hands. He quickly read through it before groaning.

"James, why?! This is garbage! Like, more garbage than mine!" Sam asked.

I shrug, displaying my apathy for how good my paper is. "Look, I'm already putting more effort into my homework than Professor Port is putting into his classes. He seems like a nice guy, but I might as well be teaching myself the material."

Sam seems to want to argue with me about that, going so far as to open his mouth, but his argument seemed to die halfway out of his mouth. He sighed.

"Yeah, you're… Kinda right. Still, you can do better than this!" Sam replied.

"Why bother? Not like doing well in this paper's gonna help with what's coming our way." I argued back.

"Look, I get that we've gotta be prepared, but there's other stuff going on in our lives."

I nod. "I know. I spent half the day with Ruby instead of planning out the future. Cut me a little bit of slack here."

Sam groaned. "James, come on. We're in school. You need to take this seriously or else you could get kicked out."

"Nah, I'm not doing that badly. If they don't kick Cardin or Jaune out, there's no way that they'd kick me out." I flinch, realizing how that might have sounded.

"James…"

"Sorry, didn't mean it like that. I know that Jaune's smart, but he didn't exactly get in… Legit. Ozpin obviously knows that, and hasn't kicked him out. If that isn't enough to get you kicked out of Beacon, I don't know what is."

Sam sighs, but reluctantly nods. "Yeah, I guess. Come on, it's getting late. Let's go back to the dorm."

"Sure thing."

As we walk back, we walk into a few people that Sam's met. They stop and say hi, most of them starting up a conversation with Sam. This happens everywhere Sam goes. He insists that he's not that popular, but no matter where I walk with Sam, there's always a ton of people that want to just stop and talk to him.

Not that there's no reason for it. Sam's a pretty friendly guy, and pretty funny to boot. Add in the fact that he's won a tournament in Atlas, as well as his bright green and yellow hat that makes him stick out like a beacon, and he attracts people to him like moths to a flame.

Because of that, the five minute journey back to our dorm takes us half an hour, and the sun had already set by then.

I spread out on my bed, slowly getting under the covers before thinking about the day. We did well against team CRDL, who might not be as bad as they were in the show. They hadn't been bullying Jaune, which was a nice improvement… Though it made me wonder if that would hurt Jaune in the long run. Their harassment was what helped Jaune seek out Pyrrha's training and his fight against the Ursa in the Forever Fall helped give him the confidence he needed to be a team leader.

But if it meant that CRDL were nicer… And well, I can't really argue that Jaune SHOULD be bullied, but… Maybe our interference helped? I mean, all of their energy seemed to be focused on Sam, so maybe they wouldn't be so awful to everyone else?

* * *

I was wrong.

Sam and I had our trays, and were heading towards our usual table with RWBY and JNPR, when we saw team CRDL pulling on the ears of a rabbit faunus.

"Hey, these are real!"

"Hah! Look at this freak!"

"Ow! Stop it! That hurts!" The girl responded.

I glance over to Sam, who seemed to be pretty mad at the situation.

"Hold my lunch." His tone offered no argument, and I took the tray that he handed to me, happy to simply watch the future chaos unfold.

Sam simply marched right up to Cardin, his gaze determined, and his fists balled up at his side. Cardin was very lucky that we weren't allowed to carry our weapons with us in the hallways, otherwise I have no doubt that Sam would have blasted him out the window with his shotgun by now.

"Cardin." Sam ground out, announcing his presence to the members of team CRDL.

They all turned around in an instant. Cardin growled seeing Sam there. "Oh, hello there Schnee dog. What's the matter? I figured that you'd be happy to join in on the fun here."

"Unlike you, I don't go around bullying people!" Sam retorted.

"Oh, that's rich. You think this is a person? She's just an animal, Scott. I figured with your fancy Schnee tutoring you'd have figured that out by now."

"Cardin. Let. Her. Go. Or else."

Cardin grinned manically at Sam's statement. "Or else what? You don't have your special gun here. No dust from your master. You're nothing more than a pathetic little piece of sh-"

"So, what's your name?" I asked, interrupting their chat.

The two blinked, and looked over to me, and then their eyes widened in shock when they realized who I was sitting next to.

While those two were making a scene, I took the opportunity while everyone's attention was taken away to remove the faunus' ear from Cardin's grasp. (I'd replaced it with a hash brown. I kinda figured that would have given me away, but somehow it hadn't.)

"U-um… I'm Velvet. Nice to meet you!"

Sam grinned at me, and I nodded back at him. Cardin looked like he was about to pop a blood vessel, but I ignored it.

You see, while we weren't allowed to bring weapons with us, there was no rule against carrying dust around the school, and for Sam, dust was WAY more powerful than his gun. And I'd just moved away Velvet, who would have been collateral damage.

"You know, I've always wanted to do this." Sam said, holding out his hand, which just so happened to be holding a small vial of gravity dust.

" _Shinra Tensei_ " Sam intoned. It didn't actually do anything, I figured Sam just made it sound cooler.

Either way, the sheer force that collided with team CRDL did seem reminiscent of the technique with the same name. The team of four went FLYING out the window and actually collided with the other side of beacon, leaving imprints in the stone wall there.

Sam grinned viciously at the hole in the wall that the team of bullies had just left out of, satisfied with the punishment that he had left them with.

"Weiss, your friend kinda scares me." Yang said after a few moments of silence.

Weiss merely gave a smug smirk in response, knowing that her best friend was among the best of the best. He grew up with her after all, was there any question that he would be anything else?

 **A/N:**

 **Long-ish update time brought to you by poor time-management, poor judgement skill, and generally me not making the right decisions, so life is hitting me like a freight train right now. That, and my muse just wasn't having that fight scene. If this is incoherent, that's because the last quarter or so of this chapter (including the AN) were all written around 3 in the morning, because that's just when I found the inspiration to write.**

 **Anyways, first fight scene of the series that lasted for more than 1000 words. Thoughts? I'm not the best at fight scenes, so I don't know if what I wrote was pretty good, but I'm not confident that it was.**

 **Seeing some interactions between Ruby and James, the advertised pairing of the story. Don't expect a romance overnight people. It's gonna take a while.**

 **Also, I'm having a seriously hard time writing Ruby. I'll do my best, but I'm just not finding it an easy task.**

 **Oh yeah, Naruto reference. 'Cause I've been wanting Sam to be able to do that since I figured out that his dust powers are freaking ridiculously powerful.**

 **Finally, the previous chapter was really buggy going up, so if you haven't read chapter 5, it's been up for a while. It just might have not been live when you received the notification.**

 **Anyways, reviews:**

 **RikuKage - Yeah, that's not happening that way. Honestly, it would make no sense for Ruby to realize that James is that kid. Like I said, he's got a pretty average appearance, (Brown hair, white skin, no real distinguishing features) so she wouldn't recognise him after so long.**

 **That being said, it's not like that's never going to be made known to her. It'll happen… Eventually.**

 **Just Passing By - I'm not terribly familiar with Rick Riordan's works. I read** _ **Percy Jackson and the Olympians**_ **series when I was in Elementary school, but I don't own the books and haven't read them in a long time. If you're talking about putting something like (Ruby P.O.V) at the start of each line break, I kinda hate that. Also, I only really have two narrative modes: first-person (which is always James) and third-person omnipotent (which is usually either focused on Ruby or Sam). Hope that helps.**

 **Also, I'm aware that some characters aren't the most accurate. Unfortunately, as I previously mentioned, life is kinda kicking my ass right now, so I don't really have time to go back and watch seasons 1-3. I watched Pyrrha's fight with CRDL for this chapter, but that's it.**

 **dandyrr0403 - Well, I hope you liked this chapter. James is unfortunately likely to be pretty secretive for quite some time moving forwards, so sorry about that.**


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